Pregnancy Terms Can Make You Hide Under a Tarp

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Pregnancy Terms Can Make You Hide Under a Tarp

Most medical terms sound hyper-enlightened and mystifying, but are actually based on Latin and Greek words that just meant… the thing that they referred to. What woman is going to let a “student of women” near their vagina, let alone PAY them for it? But that’s what “gynecologist” meant literally in Greek. If you look at word origins, they’re surprisingly simple. Like, run-around-with-a-bucket-on-your-head simple.

Of course, doctors use these words because they sound intimidating and expensive. You wouldn’t entrust your physical wellbeing to someone you were certain put a bucket on their head for fun, would you? We’d probably find it harder to shell out our arms and legs for items on a medical bill like “Putting in a Heart Tube Thingy.” But it get’s a bit out of hand. Let’s take it down a notch.

We might want to rethink some of the words related to pregnancy, so it doesn’t seem so much like awfulancy. Here are some suggestions that don’t seem to demand a monocle or lab coat to say.

 


 

Fertilize → Energize

Medical definition: to cause to develop a new individual by introducing male reproductive material.

As romantic as the metaphor of a burly plowman planting a seed in a field might be for some, any word that’s also printed on a bag of dung in home improvement stores doesn’t seem fitting for the dawn of pregnancy. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d rather say my wife’s egg had been energized, and my lawn had been fertilized.

 


 

Embryo → Expected

Medical-ish definition: an unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of development.

A baby will begin in a woman’s belly with horrible names such as a zygote (when the egg first devides because it was just “energized,” in Greek it meant “yoke”) and then it becomes a blastocyst (shorty after it went happy-go-spermy, in Latin “sprout pouch”), but both these words sound like alien livestock or exploding zits. And then there’s “fetus.” Yay. Is there an ointment for the impression that word gives? The baby is what we’re expecting, so “expected” seems better.

 


 

Gestation → Bun Baking

Medical definition: the process of carrying in the womb between conception and birth.

Who doesn’t love the smell of baking bread goods? Even a gluten bigot’s nostrils tend to flare with delight. Gestation once applied to horseback riding as exercise, from the Latin “a carrying,” but now sounds like it really should be reserved for stomach parasites and science-fiction creatures.

 


 

Amniocentesis → Water Testing

Medical definition: the sampling of amniotic fluid to screen for developmental abnormalities in a fetus.

A lot of us want to make sure everything is okay. A lot of us would also like to not have to say or type a 13-character word to describe how we’re doing this. And for it not to sound like something we’d do keep a pool from turning into a green swamp. Just sayin’.

 


 

Linea Negra → Happy Highway

Medical definition: A dark centimeter-thick line appearing vertically on the abdomen in about three quarters of pregnancies.

While this word sort of sounds pretty, it readily translates to “black line.” Which you won’t find most women jumping up and down about, excitedly fast-clapping their hands to tell their friends, “I finally got a black line on my body! Weeeeeee!” Nope. Let’s go with happy highway.

 


 

Engorgement → Ripening

Medical definition: congestion with blood, as in “engorgement of the breast”.

Even if a woman’s boobs start to feel like an all-you-can-eat buffet with no customers, it just doesn’t sound right. Fruits and melons are a much more pleasant food-associated concept for boobs. Better than engorgement, which also happens to describe a hemorrhoid. More on that later.

 


 

Secretions → Whoopsies

Medical definition: A process by which substances are discharged from a cell, gland, or organ.

Vaginal mucus. Urinary leakage. They can’t be helped. It’s part of the process. But no one wants anything about a woman to ever sound like a dripping sack or bad plumbing. Do they? Don’t answer that, if you do. You’re a weirdo. Keep it to your weirdo self.

 


 

Dropped → Lowriding

Medical definition: a baby changing positions in station the uterus before labor.

Seriously? Rock-a-bye Baby’s disturbing lyrics aren’t bad enough? Let’s just all agree to keep the word “baby” away from the word “drop”, people! Lowriding is kinda cool, and definitely better than saying “the baby has dropped.”

 


 

Sadly, we’re probably stuck with all of these clunky, ancient medical words. There are so many more, too.

It’s really too bad. The average person doesn’t write the word hemorrhoid or diarrhea often at all, but they will spend an average of 2% of their lives trying to figure out how to spell them. Why can’t they just be roids and buttpiss?

Pregnancy is it’s own challenge and doesn’t need all the bovem mauris (that’s “bullsh*t” in Latin).
 


 
Also see: Childbirth Terms Can Make You Want to Puke
Because sometimes miracles are gross sounding.

Also see: Sex Terms Can Be a Total Turnoff
Sex-related terms can often be a choice between clinical and pornographic.


 

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That’s “more on” and not “moron” words. Okay, maybe a little of both.
 

21 Comments

  • Seth says:

    What about “ripening” of the cervix? I prefer my fruit to be ripe, not body parts. I feel like a “ripe” body part is kind of like saying, “He smells ripe,” which isn’t a good thing.

    • Andy says:

      Yeah, that’s not a good definition for ripening, as applied to a body part. ::shudders::

  • Sean says:

    This actually reminds me of going through Hypnobirthing classes when we were expecting our first. They change a lot of the terminology to avoid scaring the bejesus out of women and stressing them out unnecessarily through connotative meanings.

    I forget most of them now, but I remember it was “surges” instead of contractions, for example.

  • Jo says:

    Ha! Keep that to your weirdo-self!! Hehe… Lowriding might be my favorite, that or Whoopsies…I can’t decide. LOL

  • FroatFace says:

    Ooooohhhhh booooiii. You should have heard how my “Student of Women’s Vaginas” explained what my husband’s prostaglandin-rich semen was doing for my contractions. Talk about “whoopsies.” #CutOff the romance so fast our heads were spinning. (All of them)

  • Natalie Zhang says:

    what about ‘membrane striping’? When my gyno mentioned it to me I was horrified.

    • Andy says:

      I don’t even know what that is and I’m horrified.

      • Natalie Zhang says:

        Basically the OB sticks their finger in the cervix and it encourages labor to begin.

  • Scatha Pennicat says:

    Here’s a few for after baby: breastmilk = booby juice
    pumping or expressing milk = juicing the boobies
    milk that was just pumped and still warm is fresh squeezed.

    • Jesi says:

      We call pumping “harvesting boobymilk” at my house! haha

  • Jesi says:

    We call pumping “harvesting boobymilk” at my house!

  • Liz says:

    Please do something about mucus plug… gross.

    • Andy says:

      Agreed. See our Childbirth Terms post linked above at the end of this post. 😉

  • FroatFace says:

    The kids call the placenta the “baby ham.” There HAS to be another name for the “mucus plug.” The nar-stiest thing I can think of. Baby cork?

    • Andy says:

      We suggested Life Cork in another post for Childbirth terms. Baby ham??? Holy crumb! Yikes! 🙂

  • Scatha Pennicat says:

    mucus plug/bloody show – pop the cork

    • Andy says:

      Yeah, those are covered in the Childbirth Terms Can Make You Want to Puke. 😉

  • Nadine says:

    It’s all about the woman’s comfort (sorry pal)! Some want to know the truth, with the adult, correct names (that by the way all pregnant women know by the time they give birth), and some don’t want to know, they prefer to hold a fantasy in their mind and in with their words (and that’s fine… It works for them). So I would invite each couple to play it for their comfort… You did not say if your wife was bothered or disgusted by the scientific name as you were? Just curious… Also I doubt you would call “vaginal secretions” a “whoopsie” in a more intimate context when it actually serves you well 😉 Whoopsie as a flare of wrong doing or mis-hap… Playing with words can be a slippery slope (no pun intended but LMAO)!

    • Andy says:

      My mom was a nurse, so few medical terms “bother” me. This is just a satirical look at the nuance of language and the effects words can create beyond their meaning. It’s basically for shits and giggles, I think you may have taken this too seriously or literally.

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