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in: Perspectives on Israeli Anthropology, Abuhav,O.,Hertzog,E.,& Marx,E, Editor, Wayne State University, Michigan, pp.453-464, 2010
Bedouin women are assisted in childbirth by a midwife (daya), a righteous woman considered to begraced with healing powers and possessing blessing
(baraka),'the powerto cause material and spiritual well-being, and one or two other women. This privilege is reserved first for the mother-in-law, and the e-l
dest daughter may be called on to help fi necessary. No one else is allowed to be present. The midwife then takes a strip of clean white flannel, one-half to one cen-
timeter wide, and winds ti round theumbilical cord at a distance of twofingers (three centimeters) from the navel. She winds a piece of white sewing thread
twice around this material and ties it with astrongknot to hold the cord rigid. Four fingers (six centimeters) from the first knot, she loosely knots another
thread round the cord, cuts the cord? above this knot, and smears the cut end with kohl (kuhl)tostop the bleeding and close the cut. She severs the cord with
a sharp razor blade that has been sterilized in a flame. Within a week the section of the umbilical cord between the two knots dries up and falls off.