Pumsavana Sanskar is a ritual done in the third month of pregnancy as per Hinduism sacred and ancient texts. This is also known as the quickening of the fetus for a male child. During this ritual, a few drops of the juice of the Banyan stem are put into the right nostril of the pregnant lady to inhale it, with a prayer for the birth of a son or a worthy child. According to Susruta, the great Ayurvedic writer, the juice of the Banyan tree has all the properties of relieving trouble during pregnancy.

During the time of pregnancy, she should avoid having sex, the evils of anger, aversion, and stress, and should avoid sleeping in the daytime, staying awake at night, exerting herself physically, riding in vehicles, taking purgatives, experiencing any types of mental strain, and eating spicy, salty and sour or heavy foods, or pungent foods like chillies, etc. She should also avoid the association of other men, and women of loose morals, politicians and the envious.

She should eat ghee, milk, sweet, Somalata, i.e., Gudichi herbs, rice, sweet curd, wheat, Urad, Mung, etc., grains, the vegetables giving strength. In these vegetables she should mix the spices according to the season and eat them, i.e. In summer season she should eat cold white Feronia Elephantum, etc., and in cold season saffron, musk, etc. Always she should depend on good healthy diets and avoid "junk foods". The pregnant woman should particularly use dry ginger root in hot milk so that the child be intelligent, healthy and endowed with good qualities, actions and nature.(Sanskar Vidhi, pages 70-71.) She should also begin a regime of reading to the child in the womb if she hasn't already begun, for now the child can assimilate and take on the properties of what association he contacts.