Pregnancy and Birth Customs

According to the old custom, after checking the family annals, avoiding the profanation of taboo names (name of a child is same as the name of ancestors); the newborn child is officially given a name.

It has some difficulties for the wife when she is pregnant and has baby at the first time. The first-born baby custom means the wife come back to her family to have the first-born baby, and from the second child she stays at her husband’s family.

In Vietnam, there are three main kinds of adopted child: formal adopted child, symbolic adopted child and pretended adopted child.

There are many reasons why Vietnamese do not name their newborn babies when they were born. The reasons are belief, olden government policy in the old society and family customs.

In Vietnamese customs, there are a lot of superstitions related to the newborn baby after birth.