Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Faculty of Medicine, RWTH Aachen, Pauwelsstraße 30, 52074, Aachen, Germany.
Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine: JARA-Institute Brain Structure Function Relationship (INM 10), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany.
Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2023 Oct;25(10):493-500. doi: 10.1007/s11920-023-01448-2. Epub 2023 Aug 19.
Pregnancy denial is the lack of awareness of being pregnant. The aim of the review is to understand why the affected women do not recognize the signs of pregnancy.
Twelve case reports of pregnancy denial were published in the last ten years. While in five cases the women had an underlying mental disorder, the rest of the cases involved women who either exhibited no physical symptoms or perceived themselves to be not pregnant despite the symptoms (i.e., repression mechanisms). Pregnancy denial is considered to be a pathological issue, a likely consequence of trauma, the wish to not have a child, or a psychiatric problem. However, it appears that the majority of cases cannot be linked to any of the above reasons. We argue, therefore, that, in most cases, pregnancy denial is not associated with mental or physiological problems. Under certain circumstances, it can affect any woman.
妊娠否认是指对怀孕缺乏认知。本综述旨在了解为什么受影响的女性没有意识到怀孕的迹象。
在过去十年中,发表了 12 篇关于妊娠否认的病例报告。虽然其中 5 例女性存在潜在的精神障碍,但其余病例涉及的女性要么没有出现身体症状,要么尽管有症状但认为自己没有怀孕(即压抑机制)。妊娠否认被认为是一种病理问题,可能是创伤、不想生孩子或精神问题的结果。然而,似乎大多数病例都不能归因于上述任何原因。因此,我们认为,在大多数情况下,妊娠否认与心理或生理问题无关。在某些情况下,它可能会影响任何女性。