Meanings
- uncountableA condition where a pregnant mother is obsessed with being thin.
2008, Jane Bainbridge, "Pregorexia: body image over baby?" (article), in British Journal of Midwifery, Volume 16, Issue 9, September 4 2008, page 608.
3 more examples
Pregorexia came on the radar in 2006 when former TV presenter Liz Fraser told Marie Claire magazine about her struggle with bulimia during pregnancy.
2009 July 7, Kevin Courtney, “Pregorexia”, in The Irish TimesHer dramatic weight loss meant Mrs Bassett had to be taken into hospital when just 11 weeks pregnant. Evan was born early at 30 weeks, but her ‘pregorexia’ left her too frail to care for him until he was 14 months old.
2012 March 2, Alison Smith-Squire, “The 'pregorexic' mother whose weight plummeted to FOUR STONE because she was so worried about getting fat during pregnancy”, in Daily MailPregorexia, or 'mommyrexia', as they dub it Stateside, is a growing disorder: women exercising madly all through the pregnancy (there are now scores of websites devoted to selling workout gear for pregnant women, while sizes for maternity clothes these days often include an extra-small, which would be impossibly tiny even for the average non-pregnant woman), […]
2013, Emily Hourican, How to (Really) Be a Mother, Gill & Macmillan, →ISBN
Origin
Blend of pregnancy + anorexia.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
pregorexia. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pregorexia
“pregorexia.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pregorexia. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pregorexia,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pregorexia.
Source: pregorexia on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.