Puerperium

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ËŒpuː.ɝˈpiː.ɹi.É™m/, /ËŒpuː.ɚˈpiː.ɹi.É™m/

Origin

From Latin puerperium ("childbed, childbirth"), noun form of puerperus ("of a woman in labour"), adjectival form of puerpera ("a woman in her childbed"), from puer ("boy") + pariō ("I bear").

Full definition of puerperium

Noun

1. (obstetrics) The period of time lasting around a month immediately following childbirth, when the mother’s uterus shrinks back to its prepartum state.
• 1921, Robert Bing & Charles Lewis Allen, A Textbook of nervous diseases for students and practicing physicians: In Thirty Lectures, p84As exciting causes, psychic traumata, exposure to cold, the puerperium, excesses, have been brought forward.

Related terms

• antepartum
• parous
• postpartum
• puerperal