Di nixi

"[3] Varro (1st century BC) said that enixae was the term for women in labor brought about by the Nixae, who oversee the types of religious practices that pertain to those giving birth.

These had been brought to Rome by Manius Acilius Glabrio among the spoils seized from Antiochus the Great after his defeat at Thermopylae in 191 BC, or perhaps from the sack of Corinth in 146.

A lengthy inscription[15] marks the occasion of these games under Augustus in 17 BC and notes a nocturnal sacrifice carried out for the Ilithyis, Eileithyiai, the Greek counterparts of the Nixae as birth goddesses.

[17] It has been suggested that the iconography of kneeling became associated with birth because women sought divine aid for what was often a life-threatening experience in the ancient world.

For hours I have sat facing the inside of the central portal of this church which is always sealed to accommodate the hundreds of exvotos for the statue of the seated Madonna del (Divin) Parto [Our Lady of Divine Childbirth] and I have watched by candlelight scores of Roman women touch certain parts of that Christian idol in a given order.