False pregnancy

The symptoms of pseudocyesis are similar to the symptoms of true pregnancy and are often hard to distinguish from it. Such natural signs as amenorrhoea, morning sickness, tender breasts, and weight gain may all be present. Many health care professionals can be deceived by the symptoms associated with pseudocyesis. Research shows that 18% of women with pseudocyesis were at one time diagnosed as pregnant by medical professionals.[1]

To be diagnosed as true pseudocyesis, the woman must actually believe that she is pregnant. When a woman intentionally and consciously feigns pregnancy, it is termed a simulated pregnancy.

There are various explanations, none of which is universally accepted because of the complex involvement of cortical, hypothalamic, endocrine, and psychogenic factors.[2] Proposed mechanisms include the effect of stress on the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis, constipation, weight gain, and the movement of intestinal gas.

Pseudocyesis is not known to have a direct underlying physical cause and there are no general recommendations regarding treatment with medications. In some cases, however, the patient may be given medications for such symptoms as the cessation of menstruation. When some patients with pseudocyesis have underlying psychological problems, they should be referred to a psychotherapist for the treatment of these problems. It is important at the same time, however, for the treating professional not to minimize the reality of the patient's physical symptoms. The treatment that has had the most success is demonstrating to the patient that she is not really pregnant by the use of ultrasound or other imaging techniques.

The rate of pseudocyesis in the United States has declined significantly in the past century. In the 1940s there was one occurrence for approximately every 250 pregnancies. This rate has since dropped to between one and six occurrences for every 22,000 births.[3] The average age of the affected woman is 33, though cases have been reported for girls as young as 6 and women as old as 79. More than two-thirds of women who experience pseudocyesis are married, and about one-third have been pregnant at least once.

Cases of pseudocyesis have been documented since antiquity. Hippocrates gave the first written account around 300 BC when he recorded 12 cases of women with the disorder. Mary I (1516–1558), Queen of England, was suspected to have had two phantom pregnancies, but this is strongly disputed; some historians believe that the queen's physicians mistook fibroid tumors in her uterus for a pregnancy, while others suspect either a molar pregnancy (proceeding to choriocarcinoma) or ovarian cancer was to blame. John Mason Good coined the term pseudocyesis from the Greek words pseudes (false) and kyesis (pregnancy) in 1823.

• Denial of pregnancy
• Couvade syndrome

• Ramachandran, VS; Blakeslee, Sandra (August 18, 1999). Phantoms in the Brain. pp. 212–218. ISBN 0-688-17217-2.
• Cohen, LM (September 1982). "A current perspective of pseudocyesis". The American Journal of Psychiatry. 139 (9): 1140–1144. doi:10.1176/ajp.139.9.1140. ISSN 0002-953X. PMID 7114306.

• Paulman, PM; Sadat, A (1990). "Pseudocyesis". J Fam Pract. 30 (5): 575–6. PMID 2185336.
• Pseudopregnancy at RightDiagnosis.com
• Canine Pregnancy and Pseudopregnancy at Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine
• Evans, DL; Seely, TJ (1984). "Pseudocyesis in the male". J. Nerv. Ment. Dis. 172 (1): 37–40. doi:10.1097/00005053-198401000-00008. PMID 6537816.