http://www.womenhealthline.com/pregnancy-symptoms/ Tue, 06 Dec 2011 11:56:27 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.womenhealthline.com/pregnancy-symptoms/#comment-7187 vareeja Thu, 24 Jun 2010 05:22:31 +0000 http://www.womenhealthline.com/?p=2109#comment-7187 False pregnancy in humans is less common, and may sometimes be purely psychological. It is generally estimated that false pregnancy is caused due to changes in the endocrine system of the body, leading to the secretion of hormones which translate into physical changes similar to those during pregnancy. The underlying cause is often mental. Cases of pseudocyesis have been documented since antiquity. Hippocrates gives us the first written account around 300 B.C. when he recorded 12 cases of women with the disorder. Mary I (1516–1558), Queen of England, was perhaps the most famous of western historical examples, who believed on two occasions that she was pregnant, when she was in fact not. Some even attribute the violence that gave her the nickname "Bloody Mary" to be a reaction to her disappointment on realising she was without child. Other medical historians believe that the queen's physicians mistook fibroid tumors in her uterus for a pregnancy. John Mason Good coined the term pseudocyesis from the Greek words pseudes (false) and kyesis (pregnancy) in 1923. False pregnancy in humans is less common, and may sometimes be purely psychological. It is generally estimated that false pregnancy is caused due to changes in the endocrine system of the body, leading to the secretion of hormones which translate into physical changes similar to those during pregnancy. The underlying cause is often mental.
Cases of pseudocyesis have been documented since antiquity. Hippocrates gives us the first written account around 300 B.C. when he recorded 12 cases of women with the disorder. Mary I (1516–1558), Queen of England, was perhaps the most famous of western historical examples, who believed on two occasions that she was pregnant, when she was in fact not. Some even attribute the violence that gave her the nickname “Bloody Mary” to be a reaction to her disappointment on realising she was without child. Other medical historians believe that the queen’s physicians mistook fibroid tumors in her uterus for a pregnancy. John Mason Good coined the term pseudocyesis from the Greek words pseudes (false) and kyesis (pregnancy) in 1923.

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