Tokophobe

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).

[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.

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.

[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.

Confessions of a Tokophobe

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.

‘[…] a tokophobe, always a tokophobe’.