tokophobe

plural tokophobes

1. One who has tokophobia.

   Confessions of a Tokophobe

   2016 July 6, Chris Bodenner, “Confessions of a Tokophobe”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 09 Dec 2022

   5 more examples

   tocophobe (tō´kō fōb´) A woman who dreads childbirth—or her husband who does also, for that matter. Most tocophobes have not yet had a child and are apprehensive about the graduation ceremony from being a unigravida. Some are already mothers but still (with good reason) dread labor pains. A tocophobe, or maieusiophobe, should probably know a good levatrice (midwife).

   [1986, David Grambs, Dimboxes, Epopts, and Other Quidams: Words to Describe Life’s Indescribable People, Workman Publishing, →ISBN, page 124

   [Kristina] Hofberg separates sufferers into two categories: primary tokophobes, who fear childbirth before pregnancy, and secondary ones, whose fear is ignited by a traumatic birth. […] Some tokophobes think they will die; others imagine something unbearable happening.

   2010 March 4, Jessie Hewitson, “'I have a phobia of pregnancy'”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 11 Feb 2014

   Helen Mirren revealed herself to be a tokophobe in 2007, pinpointing the origin of her phobia to a distressing educational film about childbirth shown to her at school when she was a teenager. […] For many, it is the end of pregnancy that holds the most fear, which is why the majority of tokophobes request elective Caesarean sections to help ease their worries.

   2011 March 19, Ben Wakeling, “Overcoming Tokophobia (Fear Of Pregnancy And Child Birth)”, in HuffPost, archived from the original on 09 Dec 2022

   [Kristina] Hofberg and [Ian] Brockington (2000) divide sufferers into two categories: primary tocophobes, who fear childbirth before pregnancy, and secondary tocophobes, whose fear is ignited by a traumatic birth.

   2015, Sally Pairman, Jan Pincombe, Carol Thorogood, Sally Tracy, “Challenges to Women’s Health”, in Midwifery: Preparation for Practice, Elsevier, →ISBN, page 183

   Describing her reaction to a film on childbirth that was shown at her school, Dame Helen Mirren once commented: ‘I swear it traumatised me to this day. I haven’t had children and now I can’t look at anything to do with childbirth. It absolutely disgusts me’ (Shears, 2007). One might infer that Dame Helen is a tocophobe: someone with a severe fear of childbirth.

   2018 February 2, George F. Winter, “Tocophobia”, in British Journal of Midwifery, volume 26, number 2, →DOI