Grandmother Birth Spirit

Samshin Halmoni, "Grandmother Samshin" or "Grandmother of the Three Spirits", is the goddess of conception, pregnancy and childbirth in Korean folk religion, traditionally petitioned by women hoping to conceive and honoured throughout pregnancy and immediately after birth as the spirit directly responsible for a safe delivery and a healthy infant.

Korean birth custom historically set aside a small offering shelf or table specifically for Samshin Halmoni in the room where a birth took place, presenting her with steamed rice and miyeokguk, seaweed soup, the same dish traditionally eaten by a new mother to recover her strength, extending the goddess's honour into the postpartum period rather than treating her role as ending once the child was safely born. Her continuing care was understood to extend through a child's earliest and most vulnerable years, and families sometimes continued token offerings to her on a child's early birthdays, particularly the culturally significant hundred-day and first-year milestones, as thanks for the child's survival through the highest-risk period of infancy in a pre-modern setting with high infant mortality.