Al anası, also called Hal anası or Albastı, is the dreaded childbirth demon of Azerbaijani folk belief: a hideous woman with dishevelled hair, long nails and pendulous breasts thrown back over her shoulders, who preys on women during labour and in the forty days after, and on the newborn. She is said to snatch the mother's liver or lungs and drown them in a river, bringing on the fatal fever of childbed. Against her the household keeps a man near the mother, never leaves her alone, and lays iron, a needle, a knife or a skewer, beside the bed; the colour red and prayer also repel her. A recurring motif holds that whoever pierces her garment with a needle or steals a hair from her binds her into servitude until the token is returned. She belongs to a pan-Turkic and Iranian complex of the same demon, attested from the Caucasus to Central Asia.