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 s Jane Pincus said in Our Bodies, Ourselves,
Having a child involves the whole of a woman's social, physical, sexual and spiritual being. When you bear children, you have great strengths and capabilities--flexibility, determination, humor, endurance and inner knowledge about what feels best for you (397).
Jewish women and families around the world are ritualizing their pregnancies through folk practices because that is what feels best for them. Some practice because it connects them to loved-ones lost or older generations, others to feel distinctly Jewish in ways that they had not previously felt, and many to protect the welfare of themselves and their expected babies. No matter what their intentions, families are ritualizing what is, what has been, and what will continue to be the most transformative event of men and women's lives.
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