Dendera A woman giving birth

A woman giving birth and being helped by Hathor and Taweret (Temple of Hathor, Dendera)

A typical birthing scene would have women reciting incantations to the Seven Hathors who presided over the birth, and who would predict the nature of the child´s death. A child born on the twenty-third of the month would be killed by a crocodile; on the fourth by fever; on the fifth by love. Lucky children were born on the ninth day of the second month of Akhet - they would die of old age. Even luckier were those born on the twenty-ninth day of the same month: they would die ´well-respected´. 
But if the baby were to live at all, and most didn´t survive infancy, it would need to be protected from want and disease; a protection which only material well-being, however modest, could supply