tokophobic

English

Alternative forms

• tocophobic

Adjective

tokophobic (comparative more tokophobic, superlative most tokophobic)

1. Having or relating to tokophobia.
   • 2002, Jessica Autumn Brown, In Praise of Good Breeding: Pronatalism and Immigration in the British Print Media, page 56:

     […] Kristina Hofberg, Britain’s “leading expert on the syndrome,” who claims that just thinking about birth can make tokophobic women anxious.

   • 2009, Neil Humphreys, “The Third Trimester”, in Be My Baby: On the Road to Fatherhood, Marshall Cavendish, page 171:

     Interestingly, a 2008 British study found that almost half of pregnant women who request a Caesarean section do so because they have a genuine fear of childbirth. In fact, it’s estimated that one in seven women may be tokophobic. It’s thanks to all those damned horror stories from our dear, beloved friends and families. You know the ones. Your mother insists that her labour lasted 78 hours and that the resulting baby was so big, the doctors christened it Moby Dick and sent in a Japanese whaling fleet.

   • 2016, Natalie Jolly, “Birthing Baby Blue: Beyoncé and the Changing Face of Celebrity Birth Culture”, in Adrienne Trier-Bieniek, editor, The Beyoncé Effect: Essays on Sexuality, Race and Feminism, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., →ISBN, page 148:

     In framing her birth story in this way, Beyoncé veered away from the tokophobic assumptions that have normalized pain avoidance as a customary part of birth culture.