Lucina, the goddess of childbirth

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Lucina is a goddess of Roman mythology of Etruscan origin. She was the goddess of childbirth and safeguarded women in labor.

In terms of their functions as goddesses of childbirth who protected the lives of women in labor, Juno and occasionally Diana were referred to as Lucina in the ancient Roman religion.

The name lucina, which derives from the Latin lux, lucis, “light,” connects Juno and Diana to the moonlight, whose cycles were used to assess female fertility and gauge the length of a pregnancy. On the night of the new moon, she was referred to as Juno Covella by Juno priests. The title could also have been derived from the Latin word lucus, which means “grove,” in reference to a sacred grove of lotus trees on the Esquiline Hill that was connected to Juno and later served as the location of her temple.

Juno Lucina was the foremost of a number of gods that had an impact on or provided guidance at every stage of pregnancy, birth, and child growth. Examples include Vagitanus, who opened the lips of the baby to cry, and Fabulinus, who made possible the kid’s first intelligible speech. Birth goddesses collectively known as the di nixi had an altar on the Campus Martius.

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