Prenatal lunation
The prenatal lunation is the New or Full Moon immediately before a birth, treated by Hellenistic astrology as a significant point of the nativity.
Its degree is read as a sensitive place in the chart, and the classical authors give it a role in the almuten calculation, where it counts among the places whose dignities are weighed. Ptolemy uses it in the doctrine of the length of life.
Which type it is matters. A birth after a New Moon falls in the waxing half of the cycle and is read as increasing; after a Full Moon, in the waning half and read as releasing. It is a fact about the two days before a birth, not about the birth moment itself.
Frequently asked
Is the prenatal lunation the same as the Moon phase at birth?
They describe the same cycle from different ends: the phase is where the Moon stands now, the lunation is the exact syzygy that preceded it.
Where is it used?
In the almuten of the figure, in length-of-life doctrine, and as a sensitive degree that transits and directions are read against.