A current perspective of pseudocyesis

Abstract

Pseudocyesis is a diagnosis out of medical antiquity in with the physiological and psychological concomitants of pregnancy develop in the absence of the true gravid state. Along with other dramatic and polymorphous psychiatric disorders pseudocyesis appears to have decreased in frequency or altered its clinical manifestation in this century. The author discusses the reasons behind these changes and describes a comparable modern neuroendocrine diagnosis, the galactorrhea-amenorrhea hyperprolactinemia syndrome. He advocates the combined use of the term pseudocyesis for a selected population of patients.