The tradition of celebrating the first month of a baby's life is still practiced in many places to symbolize the infant's birth.However, this celebration is but one of the climaxes in the wealth of traditional Chinese birth rites.

The beginning of life rites

Most of the nations in the world have various life rites, which encompass a person's entire life. It all begins from one's birth to his or her death, separated by a series of important occasions like growing up, adulthood, and marriage. Among all of them the birth rite is the first major event and carries people's love and blessing for the newborn.

The traditional birth rites of the Han people usually consisted of several parts, including the birth rite, the three-day rite, the one-month rite, the hundred-day rite, and the one-year-old rite. The culmination of these celebrations signaled the end of the birth rites.

The main customs of traditional birth rites

Traditional Chinese birth rites varied in form and expression based on terrain differences. Nevertheless, most of the them included five major rites for the celebrations of a child: at birth, and when he or she was three days old, a month old, a hundred days old, and a year old; The details were largely identical except for a few minor differences.

Birth Rite

According to the Classic of Poetry, if a boy is born, he should be dressed in fancy clothing and put on a bed, with a jade ware given to him as a toy. If a girl is born, she should sleep on the floor in swaddling clothes, and be given a pottery spindle to play with. The notion of valuing men and belittling women as well as the concept that men are superior to women are very obvious in this tradition.

In another ancient classic called the Book of Rites, a bow is hung on the left side of the door if a boy is born, and a piece of cloth is hung on the right side of the door if it's a girl. Evidently, the bow and cloth have distinctive gender features.

After the birth of a child, a name was also given in the first few days. Usually, the new father would report the good news reported to relatives and friends, especially the wife's parents, whom the son-in-law would present with a red egg.

The three-day celebration

It was held when the child was three days old. The main customs included:

1．Shooting arrow to the sky

According to the Book of Rites, three days after a boy was born, the parents would carry him outside of the room, and shoot an arrow in the four directions. This symbolizes the belief that a boy should have high ambitions. This practice was not applicable to girls.

2．A bathing ceremony would be held three days after a child's birth. The practice first appeared in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), and became popular in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). The infant would be put into the basin for its first bath.  

3．The visitors would bring various gifts of different meanings. For instance, dates and chestnuts expressed hope that the baby could stand up early, and lotus seeds were used to express the wish of giving birth to another baby, because these presents are homophonic to their symbolized meaning in Chinese.

4．Sometimes, a shallot (cong) was used to pat the baby, as it sounds like intelligent in Chinese.  Friends and relatives would give red packages, and the host would serve cakes and noodles to the guests.

5．After the bath, another important ceremony was held, in which the rest of the umbilical cord would be removed. That same day, the mother would also begin to breastfeed the child. To help the baby better endure hardships in the future, some Chinese goldthread water, which is very bitter, would be sprinkled on the nipples, before the baby could first taste breast milk.

One-month-old ceremony

Just as the name suggests, this series of celebrations were held when the child was one month old. The grand feast on this day was one of the most popular celebrations across the country. The fetal hair is also removed on this day. Usually a barber was invited to the household, and would be given some tips after the work.

Another custom was called "moving the nestle." Folk custom ordained that an infant could not go outside the room till it was a month old. Afterward, the mother could carry it in her arms and go to others rooms.

One-hundred-day ceremony

At the age of 100 days, the child was supposed to wear the "100-household clothing," signifying the parents' wish for child to grow up healthily, and the newborn's need for support from the neighbors. The "100-household clothing" was made of cloth from a lot of other families to symbolize their care and love.

The "Long-life lock," a mascot for longevity, was hung on the child's neck on this day. With this decorative article, people believed it could drive away the evil spirits, and "lock" the tender life. The precedent of the "long-life lock" was the "longlife threads" in the Han Dynsty (206BC-220AD).