Sacred or Counterfeit? Placenta Rituals, the Enneagram & More: Biblical Discernment of Birth Practices, Ep. 4
If you've been walking through this series with me, you know we're on a journey of asking better questions about the birth practices floating around us—not to shame anyone, but to bring everything back to the Lord. This week we're getting into some practices that might be totally new to you, and others you've probably seen a hundred times without realizing what's really underneath them. Grab your coffee, mama, and let's dig into this one together.
🎧 Listen to the Episode
Three Questions, One Series
If this is your first time joining the Biblical Discernment of Birth Practices series, here's the framework we've been using the whole way through: Where did this practice come from? What worldview do I need to hold while engaging with it? And what fruit does it produce?
Blessing Ways vs. the Mother's Blessing
Let's start with two practices that look similar on the surface but come from very different places. A blessing way is a pre-birth ceremony, often offered as an alternative to a baby shower, that leans on goddess imagery and the sacred feminine as a source of protection for mom and baby. It traces back to Navajo tradition and was later adapted for a more secular audience.
The mother's blessing looks similar from the outside—women gathering around a mom-to-be—but it was created by Christian doulas and birth workers who wanted the same community and encouragement, without the ritual attached. It's simply women gathering to bless and pray over a mother, which is good and biblical on its own.
Here's the real question underneath both: what do we believe is actually happening spiritually? That distinction—between the physical thing we receive and the spiritual belief attached to it—is such a huge part of discernment.
Closing of the Bones & Postpartum Ceremonies
We also talked about Closing of the Bones, a postpartum ceremony where a mother's body is wrapped and rocked with a rebozo, based on the belief that birth leaves you spiritually "unsealed" and in need of closing. There's nothing wrong with being wrapped and rocked after birth—your body genuinely needs rest and support. But that's a very different claim than believing you've been spiritually opened and need a ceremony to seal you back up.
The Placenta Question (My Own Story)
This one is personal for me. With my first, Ellie, I did placenta encapsulation—paid several hundred dollars, got a tincture, the whole thing—after a trusted recommendation from someone at my church. And honestly? At the time, it did seem to help with my mood and hormones postpartum.
But even though it seemed to work for me, I still feel uneasy recommending it to my clients today. Scripture doesn't address the morality of placenta consumption directly, but there's one reference—Deuteronomy 28:57—describing a woman under siege so desperate she secretly eats her own placenta to survive. It's the only placenta mention in all of Scripture, and it falls under a heading of desperation and famine. I'm not saying that settles it, but it's worth sitting with.
We also talked about lotus birth and burying the placenta, both resting on a belief that the placenta carries energy or a spirit needing to be honored or released. Restoration after birth isn't a bad thing—the Lord designed our bodies to recover—but we still have to discern whether the practice we're using to get there is spiritually sound.
Sacred Feminine Teaching: Empowerment or Self-Worship?
This is the one I think is more subtle and more dangerous than it first appears. Sacred feminine teaching says your womb is a site of power, healing, and even ancestral trauma release—through goddess archetypes and divine feminine energy, apart from Christ.
At its root, it's self-worship. It takes something completely awe-inspiring—your body's ability to grow and sustain a child—and instead of receiving it as a gift from God to steward, it turns it into a power source residing in you. But every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights. The power was never ours to begin with; it was always the Lord's, and He's graciously made us stewards of it. This lie is dangerous precisely because it doesn't feel like idolatry—it feels like empowerment.
Spirit Babies, Astrology & the Ache to Know
We also touched on spirit baby communication (the belief that a baby's soul chooses its parents before conception) and astrology (that the stars at your birth shape your character and future). Both come from frameworks entirely outside a biblical understanding of the soul, and Jeremiah 10:2 warns God's people directly against this kind of sign-reading: "Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by the signs in the heavens."
Instead, Psalm 139 reminds us that God forms your child's inward parts and knits them together in your womb—every day of that child's life was written in His book before one of them came to be. You don't need to reach into your baby's spirit to know who they are. God already knows.
Manifestation, Control & the Enneagram
We talked about manifestation language—speaking your ideal birth into existence through visualization and intention alone—and how it differs from declaring truth God has already spoken over you. One trusts what God has said; the other asks our own voice to do what only God can do. I also shared honestly about my own journey with the Enneagram, which I once used as a personality tool before realizing its roots trace back to occult and esoteric sources. Once I saw the source, the framework, and the fruit it was producing in my life, I repented of using it—not from shame, but because the Lord's kindness led me there.
You Don't Need a Ceremony, a Chart, or a System
Here's what I want you to walk away with: you can gather women and pray for protection without a goddess ceremony. You can care for your postpartum body without needing a ceremony to close what was never spiritually opened. You can seek healing without believing your placenta or your womb holds spiritual power. You can know your baby without needing a spirit or a chart to tell you who they are. And you can know who you are—and be enough for what God has called you to—without needing a system or a phrase to hold that weight.
📖A Scripture to Anchor You
Isaiah 8:19–20 has been such a guide for this series, and it's especially fitting for today's episode:
"When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? Consult God's instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn." — Isaiah 8:19–20
That verse isn't vague or spooky language—it's naming a real, specific temptation: looking for answers in places that aren't pleasing to the Lord. But Scripture always gives us an alternative. No matter how confident the counterfeit sounds, it will never bring true light.
🙏 A Prayer for You on Your Journey
Father God, I thank You right now for the sweet sister of mine who's reading this. I thank You for the life she's carrying, and for the trust You've placed in her to steward that life well. I pray You would help her clearly see which lights are Yours, and which ones were never meant to be lit at all. If she's looked for protection, healing, knowledge, or identity outside of You, meet her there—not with shame or condemnation, but with love and an invitation to Your way. Let her have no light of dawn apart from Your word, and let that be a gift to her, not a loss. In the mighty name of Jesus, amen.
If any part of this episode stirred something in you, I want you to know: there's no condemnation here, only an invitation to bring it before the Lord yourself.
📎Resources & Links Mentioned
✨ Christian Mama Birth Prep Library - Free birth prep tools, including the Birth Practice Discernment Guide to walk through this framework yourself
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✝️ Online Christian Childbirth Education - Explore my complete birth preparation self-paced course
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Meet Your Host —
Natalie is a certified birth doula and childbirth educator in Jacksonville, FL. She's trained through DONA International, certified as a Body Ready Method Pro, and an advanced VBAC doula. Through Faith Over Fear Birth, she equips Christian women to experience peaceful, faith-filled births through both virtual and in-person support.
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📄 Full Episode Transcript
This is part four of our series on biblical discernment of birth practices. If you've been with me through this whole series, you know how we've been approaching this. There are three simple questions we're using to discern whether or not we should engage with a certain birth practice: Where did this practice come from? What is the worldview I need to hold while engaging with this? And finally, what is the fruit that this produces?
I want to share a passage in Isaiah, because I feel like it's a beautiful lens through which to see the practices we're going to be looking into more deeply today. It comes from Isaiah 8:19–20: "When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? Consult God's instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn."
If you remember last episode, we spent a lot of time in Isaiah 50, which talks about a person walking in darkness who lights their own torch instead of trusting God for His light to come. Isaiah 8 is asking a similar question, but from a different angle. It's not only about lighting your own torch to see in the dark — it's also about who you're asking when you're afraid and you need an answer. Should not a people inquire of their God? Notice what Isaiah is actually naming here: mediums, spiritists, people who whisper and mutter, consulting the dead on behalf of the living. That's not vague or spooky language — it's naming a real, specific temptation: the temptation to go looking for answers in places that are not pleasing to the Lord. But then the scripture gives us an alternative: consult God's instruction, consult the testimony of warning. No matter how confident the counterfeit sounds, it will never bring true light.
I want to preface this episode by saying that some of these birth practices may be completely unfamiliar to you. I didn't grow up knowing a lot of these either — it wasn't until I got into birth work that I started noticing them more. But I still think it's wise for you to know what's out there, so you can recognize it and make wise decisions regarding it.
So let's start with a couple of places women might go when they're seeking protection during this season. The first thing we're going to look at is the difference between a blessing way ceremony and a mother's blessing. A blessing way is a ceremony held before birth, often described as an alternative to a traditional baby shower, centered on blessing and honoring the mother through ritual. It commonly leans on goddess imagery and the sacred feminine as a source of strength and protection for the mother and her baby. Then there's a similar-looking practice called the mother's blessing — women gathering around a mother before birth, but built entirely around encouragement, prayer, and blessing, without a ritual invoking a power outside of God.
I've never personally been a part of either of these, but I want to explain what each one is and the differences between them. The blessing way traces back to Navajo tradition — a sacred ceremonial rite tied to that culture's spiritual practices — which was later adapted and popularized for a more secular audience. Here's the real question underneath it: it's not simply gathering women together that's the problem, or wanting a blessing for the mother. The question is what we believe is actually happening spiritually when we do it — whether there's a goddess power being called on or channeled into the mother through the ritual. Women usually come away from this experience feeling loved, seen, and supported, and I don't doubt that feeling is real. But the feeling being real isn't the same as the practice being spiritually sound and safe.
The mother's blessing came directly out of women — mainly Christian doulas and other birth workers — who wanted the same community and encouragement, without the rituals attached. So let's ask the same question here: what's actually happening spiritually? The answer is pretty simple — it's women gathering to bless and pray over a mother, which is good and biblical on its own. If you love the idea of gathering women to pray over the mother and baby, the mother's blessing gives you a way to do exactly that.
That distinction — between the physical thing we receive and the spiritual belief attached to it — is a huge part of discernment, and a big part of the work we're doing to decide whether or not to engage in any practice. Sometimes the thing itself isn't the problem; it's what we're being told that thing can do for us spiritually. And that's exactly what we're going to see in another example, regarding postpartum time and care.
The first ceremony we're touching on is called Closing of the Bones — a postpartum ceremony where a mother's body is bound and rocked with a rebozo, a long woven wrap. It's based on the belief that giving birth leaves you spiritually and energetically open, and that opening needs to be sealed back up. You may see this offered by a postpartum doula as an add-on to their services, and sometimes it's simply marketed as a rebozo ceremony without much explanation of what it's meant to do spiritually. It traces back to a Mexican tradition, with parallels in Malaysian postpartum practices as well. The separation here is worth noting: being wrapped up and rocked after birth — there's nothing wrong with that act in and of itself. The problem is the belief riding along with it — that you are spiritually unsealed by giving birth and need a ceremony to close you back up. That's a very different claim than saying your body simply needs rest and support after giving birth.
The blessing way, the mother's blessing, and the closing-of-the-bones ceremony are all touching on protection for the mother during and after birth. Right alongside those postpartum traditions are the various placenta practices, so let's look at a couple.
The first is placenta encapsulation, where the placenta is dehydrated and ground into pills, which the mother takes after giving birth for hormone support or mood stabilization. This one's personal for me — I actually did placenta encapsulation with my first, Ellie. I did it because I'd gotten a recommendation from someone at my church whom I knew and trusted. I ended up paying several hundred dollars to have someone pick up my placenta, encapsulate it, and bring it back to me, along with a tincture and a few other things. At the time, I did find it somewhat helpful for adjusting to the postpartum time — mood, hormone support, all of that. But even though it seemingly worked for me, I still have an uneasiness about recommending it to my own clients.
Scripture doesn't address the morality of consuming your placenta directly, but there is a passage in Deuteronomy 28:57 describing a woman under siege who is so desperate that she secretly eats her own placenta just to survive. That's the only placenta reference in all of Scripture, and I find it interesting that it falls under the heading of desperation and famine. I'm not saying that settles the question one way or the other, but it's something to consider.
The belief driving placenta encapsulation is that the placenta carries something your body can't provide on its own for recovery. I want to be fair and practical here too — the research is mixed. There isn't strong evidence that placenta encapsulation is undeniably good for you, and there are real risks to consider. Whoever processes your placenta needs to prepare it properly, or you can become very sick. So, some practical things to weigh alongside the spiritual ones.
Next is lotus birth and the ceremonial burying of the placenta. Lotus birth is leaving the placenta attached to the baby until it naturally detaches. It tends to show up in home birth and natural birth communities, as does burying the placenta, and both rest on the underlying belief that the placenta carries energy or a spirit needing to be honored or released. I'll also mention that lotus birth carries some real, well-documented infection risk.
So between placenta encapsulation, burying the placenta, and lotus birth, these are all attempts at healing and restoration after birth. Restoration after birth isn't a bad thing in itself — the Lord designed our bodies to recover. But we still need to discern whether the practice we're engaging with is spiritually sound.
There's a version of that same longing that goes even deeper, all the way to how we understand our own bodies and our own power. So let's get into sacred feminine teaching. This teaching holds that your womb is a site of power, healing, and even generational or ancestral trauma release, often described through goddess archetypes and divine feminine energy — apart from Christ. You'll most often find this in a prenatal class, or sometimes in doula trainings or postpartum healing retreats built around women's identity and healing.
Here's what I actually believe is underneath it, and I think it's more subtle and more dangerous than it first appears. At its root, sacred feminine teaching is self-worship. It takes the ability to grow and sustain a child — a completely awe-inspiring thing your body does — and instead of receiving it as a gift from God that you get to steward, it turns that ability into a power source: something divine residing in you, to be accessed and honored in and of itself. God made us to be co-creators with Him, but every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights, from above — not from within you. The power was never yours to begin with. It was always the Lord's, and He has graciously made us stewards of it. That's such a fine line, and it changes everything about where your worship lands. This lie is dangerous because it doesn't feel like idolatry — it usually feels like empowerment.
So far we've talked about where we look for protection, and where we look for healing and power. But there's another ache underneath a lot of this too — the ache to simply know, to have knowledge about what we can't see. One form of that is spirit baby communication: the belief that a baby's soul exists prior to conception, that the baby chooses its parents and its timing, and can be reached through meditation or ritual before birth even happens. This is obviously very niche, but it's showing up more in prenatal yoga and even some doula circles, usually framed as a way to bond with your baby before birth. It comes from New Age and some Eastern reincarnation frameworks, not from a biblical understanding of the soul or of when life begins. Out of everything in this episode, this is the practice that echoes Isaiah 8 most closely — consulting the dead on behalf of the living.
Here's what I'd offer instead: Psalm 139 says that God forms your child's inward parts and knits them together in your womb, and that every day ordained for that child was written in His book before one of them came to be. You don't need to reach into your baby's spirit to know who that child will be. God already knows, and He's sovereign over who your child is, when they'll arrive, and who they'll become.
That same hunger to know something we can't see shows up in a much more familiar place too — one you've probably encountered without even realizing it — astrology: the belief that the position of the stars and planets, especially at the moment of birth, shapes or reveals something true about a person's character and future. Astrology is ancient, and it's actually named directly in scripture as something God's people were repeatedly warned against. Jeremiah 10:2 names it by category: "Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by the signs in the heavens." That verse was written to a culture so saturated in reading meaning into the sky that it had become the water they swam in — which is exactly how it functions in so many birth spaces now, said so casually that it doesn't even register what we're talking about.
Another layer at play when we're seeking unknown knowledge is the temptation to control outcomes, and manifestation language is a great example of this — the practice of speaking your ideal birth outcome into existence through visualization and intention alone. You'll hear this in birth affirmation communities and on social media, and I think it's even showing up in some Christian spaces now. The more traditional manifestation language comes out of New Thought and law-of-attraction philosophy: the belief that your words and focused intention have power to shape reality apart from God.
Scripture absolutely talks about the power of our words, and faith-filled speech is a real biblical concept. But there's a real difference between declaring truth God has already spoken over you and manufacturing an outcome through your words as the source of the power. One is trusting what God has said; the other is functionally asking your own voice to do what only God can do.
If you're familiar with the popular book Supernatural Childbirth, you may recognize a similar desire for control there. The book is filled with scripture, prayer, and encouragement to trust God, and there are certainly things within it that can encourage a woman's faith during this season. But some of its teaching moves beyond trusting God's promises into the idea that by believing, speaking, and confessing those promises correctly, we can secure a particular outcome in pregnancy and birth. The goal can become not simply trusting God with our birth, but learning how to use faith to obtain the birth we want.
This is where I think we need to pause and ask ourselves a really important question: Am I surrendering my birth to God, or am I trying to use even God to secure the birth I want? Because those can look very similar on the outside — both involve prayer, both involve scripture, both may involve declarations of faith. But underneath them is a very different heart posture. Faith says: God, I know You are good, I know You are sovereign, I will prepare wisely to the best of my ability, but ultimately I trust You with what I cannot control.
Control is one desire underneath so much of what we've talked about today. But an even deeper one running beneath almost everything we've covered is this longing to know who we are, and whether that's enough. So let's talk about identity — and specifically, the Enneagram.
The Enneagram is a nine-type personality system meant to describe a person's core motivations, fears, and path to growth. It's so popular now, even among Christian teachers, counselors, and church leaders. This one's really personal for me. I was introduced to the Enneagram a few years ago as a Christian tool, presented to me primarily as a way to understand myself and others. But what I didn't know is that many researchers trace the Enneagram's roots back to occult and esoteric sources, well outside any biblical origin, before it was repackaged for a Christian audience.
Beyond the source not really passing the sniff test for me, the way it functioned in my life — if I'm being honest — started to feel almost like scriptural authority, and that really unsettles me looking back. I wasn't consulting mediums or anything outright occult, but once I realized the Enneagram's source and framework were outside of scripture, as well as the fruit it was producing in my life, I wanted to confess and repent of using it.
It's not that self-understanding is wrong. But if we allow anything other than God's word to define our identity and direct us, we are not honoring the Lord. And if that's you right now — whether it's the Enneagram or something else we've covered in this series — I don't want you to carry shame, because condemnation and shame is not the language of the Father. It's the Lord's kindness that leads us to repentance. So if you find yourself convicted over anything we've covered in this series, take it as an invitation to come back to a better source.
Some of what we've covered today is obviously a spiritual counterfeit. Some of it is spiritual but disguised as psychological or a self-development tool, like the Enneagram. And some of it isn't inherently spiritual at all, but the worldview beneath it can make it a spiritual issue. That brings me to birth culture language — phrases and affirmations like "Trust your body," "You are enough," and things of that nature. These are very common affirmations in the birth world; they're on T-shirts and affirmation cards, and woven all through class curriculum.
Your body is a good gift, fearfully and wonderfully made — but we also live in a fallen world. So when you say something like "I am enough" with no other foundation underneath it, it's asking you to be self-sufficient, which you were never designed to hold that kind of weight. My pastor says it all the time: the three most dangerous words you can believe are "I've got this," because it's a half-truth. God does give us strength to accomplish what He calls us to, but 2 Corinthians 3:5 says we are not sufficient in and of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us — our sufficiency is from God.
So let's bring this all together. Here's what I want you to walk away with after today's episode: You can still gather women and pray for protection during pregnancy and birth without a goddess ceremony. You can still care for your postpartum body without needing a ceremony to close what was never spiritually opened. You can seek healing without needing to believe your placenta, your womb, or your own power holds something spiritually significant. You can know your baby without needing a spirit or a chart to tell you who that child is. You can still hope for the birth you want without needing to manifest it into existence. And you can know who you are — and still be enough for what God has called you to — without needing a system or a phrase to hold that weight.
Every single counterfeit we've walked through today promised some form of light — protection, healing, knowledge, confidence, or identity. Isaiah 8:20 tells us plainly: if anyone does not speak according to God's word, they have no light of dawn. Jesus is the true light of the world, and He's not stingy with it. He doesn't make you consult, channel, or manifest your way to Him. He simply invites you to ask Him for it.
That's exactly why I made the Birth Practice Discernment Guide, which goes along with this whole series. I could never name every single practice in one series, and there will always be new ones showing up. The discernment guide gives you the same three questions we've used throughout this series, so you can examine them for yourself — source, framework, and fruit — and bring it before the Lord. You don't need to hold onto my conclusions about every practice we covered. My prayer for you is that you would bring anything — literally anything and everything — before the Lord yourself, because His verdict is so much better than mine could ever be. This guide is simply meant to help you keep doing that, for your own birth and beyond. You can find the discernment guide at faithoverfearbirth.com when you sign up for the Christian Mama Birth Prep Library, and there will also be a link in the show notes.
Before we close out, I'd love to pray for you as we wrap up this episode.
Father God, I thank You right now for the sweet sister of mine who's listening right now. I thank You for the life she's carrying, and for the trust You've placed in her to steward that life well. I pray that You would help her clearly see which lights are Yours, and which ones were never meant to be lit at all. If she's looked for protection, healing, knowledge, or identity outside of You and what You say, I pray You would meet her there — not with shame or condemnation, but with love and an invitation to Your way. Let her have no light of dawn apart from Your word, and I pray that's a gift to her, not a loss. In the mighty name of Jesus, amen.
Next episode we're going to close out this series on biblical discernment of birth practices by looking at what the Lord actually offers us in exchange for all the counterfeits we've covered. It's a really exciting episode, and I can't wait to share it with you. So until next time, keep choosing faith over fear.
