Puerperium

//ˌpju.əˈpɪə.ɹi.əm// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The period of time lasting around a month immediately following childbirth, when the mother’s uterus shrinks back to its prepartum state.

    "As exciting causes, psychic traumata, exposure to cold, the puerperium, excesses, have been brought forward."

  2. 2
    time period following childbirth when the mother's uterus shrinks and the other functional and anatomic changes of pregnancy are resolved wordnet

Example

More examples

"As exciting causes, psychic traumata, exposure to cold, the puerperium, excesses, have been brought forward."

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin puerperium (“childbed, childbirth”), from puerpera (“woman in labor or childbed”) + -ium (nominal suffix), from puerperus (“parturient, bringing forth children”), from puer (“child, boy”) + pariō (“to bring forth, bear”) + -us (adjectival suffix).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.