Meanings
- uncountableA method of preparing women for natural childbirth by means of special breathing, relaxation techniques and psychological conditioning, practiced without anaesthetics.
Psychoprophylaxis, the preparation of the mind to deal with pain naturally, has and is still being used for pain relief during labor and delivery.
2001, Sanjay Datta, Childbirth and Pain Relief: An Anesthesiologist Explains Your Options2 more examples
The growing emphasis on the emotional aspects of the physical bearing of children has greatly changed the practice of obstetrics across the world — from psychoprophylaxis in Russia to natural childbirth in America.
1957, Briefs - Maternity Center Association, volumes 21-25, page 6Psychoprophylaxis enjoyed a meteoric rise in the USSR and beyond, Vel'vovskii developed the method in 1948-1948, and it became national policy in the USSR in early 1951, when the Ministry of Public Health launched a campaign for its promotion. Psychoprophylaxis received the state's enthusiastic support because it required relatively little financial investment, had the added appeal of being legitimated on the basis of work by Russia's famous scientist, and supported the regime's pro-natalist agenda.
2012, Esther Cohen, Knowledge and Pain, page 235Synonyms: Lamaze
- obsoleterareuncountableThe prevention of disease by psychological means.
The field of psychoprophylaxis is somewhat more extended. In preventing diseases clearly outside of the field just referred to, it is sometimes most potent! In some so-called germ diseases its influence is most beneficial.
1911, J. Thornton Sibley, “Psychoprophylaxis”, in Eclectic Review, volume 14, page 3242 more examples
The essence of psychoprophylaxis, as of psychotherapy and education, was to associate useful activities with agreeable feeling tones, and to disassociate from useless or injurious acts the agreeable feeling tones they might have acquired.
1909 May 29, International Record of Medicine and General Practice Clinics, volume 89, page 1100Just as psychotherapy denotes not treatment of the mind, but treatment by psychic means, so I shall use the word psychoprophylaxis not to signify the prevention of psychic disorders, but to mean the preservation of health by psychic means.
1910, Pacific Medical Journal, volume 53, page 84
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA method of preparing women for natural childbirth by means of special breathing, relaxation techniques and psychological conditioning, practiced without anaesthetics.
Origin
Translations
Italian psicoprofilassi
- psicoprofilassichildbirth method
Cite this entry
psychoprophylaxis. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/psychoprophylaxis
“psychoprophylaxis.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/psychoprophylaxis. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “psychoprophylaxis,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/psychoprophylaxis.
Source: psychoprophylaxis on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.