Chinese pregnancy food superstitions and traditions, from eating dog heads to no coffee

Eating the head of a white-haired dog was considered something expectant mothers in China should do to carry a child to term successfully

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Chinese people have many traditions and superstitions about what to eat and not eat during pregnancy, some based on traditional Chinese medicine. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 12:45pm, 30 Aug 2024Updated: 2:12pm, 30 Aug 2024

Learn the ins and outs of feng shui, villain hitting and fortunetelling, as well as the dos and don’ts for cultivating good luck in our series on Chinese superstitions.

One of the earliest examples of Chinese yang tai (or nurturing the fetus) literature is known as the Taichanshu (“Book of Gestation and Birth”), a volume dating from at least 168BC that was discovered in a tomb in Mawangdui, Changsha.

It covers in detail the 10 lunar months of human gestation, and offers physicians and mothers lifestyle and dietary advice on how to carry a child to term successfully.

“In the fourth month, water is bestowed on the fetus and blood first forms. Appropriate foods are rice, wheat and mud eel, which clarify the blood and brighten the eyes,” reads one passage.

“One who carries a child should boil the heads of baimugou and eat them all by herself. Her child will be beautiful and dazzling, and it will emerge easily,” goes another, as quoted by academic Jender Lee in her paper Childbirth in Early Imperial China (2005).

One superstition in Hangzhou was that women should use a small rice bowl for their evening meal to “prevent the fetal head from being too large”. Photo: Shutterstock

While modern-day obstetricians would probably not recommend expectant mothers to cook and eat the head of a white-haired dog, as the Taichanshu suggests, there are still many superstitions around pregnancy and birthing that the Chinese continue to pass down through generations.

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