Albasti is the dreaded childbirth-demon of Uzbek and pan-Turkic folk belief, envisaged as a hideous old woman with unbound yellow hair and hanging breasts who haunts water, ruins, and the birthing-room. She assails women in labor and infants, seeking to tear out and drown the mother's liver or lungs, and is held to cause puerperal fever. Ritual defenses centre on iron laid at the childbed and on the shaman who, seizing one of her hairs or a needle from her, may bind her into service. Scholars trace the figure to a very ancient Near Eastern and Inner Asian demon-type, and her role as afflicter of mothers stands in direct opposition to the protective goddess Umay.