Shrouding - An Ancient Ritual

I know this isn’t birth-related and it may feel shocking or even triggering
— but I’m not about sugar-coating or infantilising women (or any humans).

That’s exactly what has led us to where we are now,
with the health system so often treating women as incapable
of making their own decisions in pregnancy, labour, and birth.

This is important for all of us.

We are not used to speaking or thinking about death
— yet it is the one sure thing that will come to us all.
Our time here is finite;
some of us are granted longer,
for others it is heartbreakingly shorter.

And in losing the rites of death,
we’ve also lost other rites of passage in our lives
— which is where I feel the crossover with birth so strongly.

Last week I had a profound experience:
I was shrouded at an event held by Natural Endings in Todmorden.

And it felt beautiful,
it took away some of the fear around death and dying.

Shrouding is something our ancestors did as naturally as breathing.

For thousands of years, right up until only a generation or two ago, this was how we cared for our dead — with our own hands, in our own homes, among our own families.

Can you imagine that lineage, stretching back through time?

Now, just as birth has been moved out of the home, death too has been taken away from us. We are “protected” from the rawness of it all — but to our detriment. Because when we try to shield ourselves from sadness, we also numb ourselves to joy. Being human is to feel it all.

Wrapping as Innate Human Care

Shrouding felt as natural as swaddling our babies,
or wrapping women during pregnancy and afterwards in the closing the bones ritual.

There is something profoundly human about being wrapped
— a sense of containment, support, and care.
It holds us in times of transition, whether at the threshold of birth,
in motherhood, or at the moment of death.

Being wrapped gave me an insight into just how beautiful it can be to care for our loved ones
— or their bodies —
in this way.
It doesn’t have to be fancy. It is practical, deeply human, and profoundly important.

A final act of love and letting go.

Bringing the Rites Back Home

I’ve taken part in wrapping ceremonies before,
and this weekend I am taking part in La Cerrada,
The Closing,
or Closing the Bones — a ritual of wrapping a woman after birth.

These rituals connect us.

They ground us.

They remind us that we belong to a web of care and tradition much greater than ourselves.

When we take back these ancient rites into our homes, families, and communities, we reclaim something essential. Something I can’t quite put my finger on, but which is profound, good, and necessary.

What Next?

This work forms part of my calling to support women and families in being prepared for all outcomes. Loss can be part of pregnancy, and sometimes even of birth.

Even with all the obstetric and surgical advancements, even with constant monitoring, we still cannot save every baby. In fact, that level of intervention can sometimes make birth less safe — which may be hard to believe in a culture that equates medical care with safety.

Whatever path you choose — whether highly medicalised or deeply natural — sometimes the unthinkable happens. My role is to walk beside you and your family through all of it. To offer suggestions, to allow space, and simply to be there.

I know this not just from training and work, but from life itself. I experienced the loss of a sister at six months old. I have stood beside women through miscarriage and cot death. I do not shy away from the realities of life.

In years gone by, it was the wise women, the midwives, who tended families at the beginning and at the end. These were the same women who understood that life and death are part of the same cycle, and that both deserve care and reverence.

This spring, I will be hosting a one-day workshop with Rachel Hawthorn to explore the history and practice of shrouding — and how we can reclaim it in our own lives and communities. I’d love for you to join us.