Bast was seen as a goddess who protected mothers and their newborn children. In Egyptian magical texts, a woman suffering from infertility might make an offering to Bast in hopes that this would help her conceive.

In later years, Bast became strongly connected with Mut, a mother goddess figure, and with the Greek Artemis. In early periods she was associated with the sun, and the solar god Ra, but later became representative of the moon.