False pregnancy False pregnancy False pregnancy, also known as phantom, hysterical pregnancy, pregnancy scares or pseudocyesis, is the appearance of clinical or subclinical signs and symptoms associated with pregnancy when the person is not actually pregnant. False pregnancy may sometimes be purely psychological. It is generally believed that false pregnancy is caused by changes in the endocrine system of the body, leading to the secretion of hormones that cause physical changes similar to those during pregnancy. Some men experience the same illnesses as a woman would experience while pregnant when their partner is pregnant (see Couvade syndrome), possibly caused by pheromones that
Male pregnancy sexually differentiated during most of their life and can become capable of inseminating or gestating at different times. Lois McMaster Bujold's "Ethan of Athos" features an all-male society in which men use artificial wombs, but experience many of the psychological effects of pregnancy (anticipation, anxiety, etc.). In Marge Piercy's feminist utopian novel "Woman on the Edge of Time", neither men nor women get pregnant, leaving that to artificial wombs, but both sexes may lactate and nurse the infant; the specifically female experiences of pregnancy and nursing were opened to men in the cause of gender equality. Larry Niven's 1969 essay