How does one "fall pregnant""?

etky

Thu, Dec 10 2015, 1:10 am

Brownies wrote:

Thinking about it a bit more though, maybe it's a leftover from a time when it was impolite to even very indirectly mention relations in a conversation...maybe a woman "fell" pregnant because, you know, relations was not something a refined lady would purposely engage in...

Not sure if I'm making myself clear and obviously it could be complete nonsense...just a possible explanation!

Makes lots of sense - a euphemism (maybe Victorian?) in tune with genteel, proprietous notions of female s-xuality.
I wonder though how often the phrase was actually used by members of 'refined' society. The word 'pregnant' itself is somewhat blunt and explicit. Perhaps they favored vaguer terms like 'expecting' or ' in the family way'.

salt

Thu, Dec 10 2015, 1:43 am

Has no one mentioned "falling asleep" - that's not by accident. You could even say "I can't fall asleep/ I'm trying to fall asleep"
It's just a figure of speech. South Africans say it, as a previous poster said.

amother

Orchid

Thu, Dec 10 2015, 2:31 am

My father, a respected rav from a very litvish background, still says "uf di tziet" in regards to a woman that's pregnant! In those days it was totally not appropriate... Reb. Soloveitchik(R Dovids wife) Also would never say pregnant! She uses a dif term,I forgot what though.

chanchy123

Thu, Dec 10 2015, 3:31 am

LiLIsraeli wrote:

It's an accepted phrase. It's used in Hebrew too: "naflah b'heirayon."

NEVER heard that used, I'm Israeli born and bred. The only way I could imagine that being used (and again, I never heard it but can imagine something like this being said) is in chareidi society referring to a pregnancy conceived out of wedlock. In Hebrew you "enter" pregnancy Nichnesa leherayon.
Falling is always negative in Hebrew, you can "fall" into drugs, or even in religious circles, "fall" into inappropriate websites.

amother

Rose

Thu, Dec 10 2015, 4:58 am

As soon who never got pregnant easily, I always imagined it means that the act of being pregnant isn't something that you can make happen (like falling ill, falling asleep - you can try but in the end it's really something that has to happen to you, and conversely you can really want it to happen and try to make it happen but it still might not happen (I don't know who would want to be ill though). It's something that happens inside you, by itself. You can have relations, yeah. But you don't actually cause fertilization to happen.

Just like a fall is something out of your control, so too fertilization happens completely independently of your actions.

etky

Thu, Dec 10 2015, 6:43 am

chanchy123 wrote:

Or, in the medical realm- she fell into a coma נפלה לתרדמת
or נפלה למשכב - she took to her bed due to illness.
Perhaps though there are Anglos who might be using the phrase wrongly in the context of pregnancy if they are translating literally from the English into Hebrew.

etky

Thu, Dec 10 2015, 6:52 am

amother wrote:

Interesting. You have a point there.
Still, pregnancy is distinct from sleep, illness or even falling in love in that though there is that 'out of our control' element, we are still required to do something proactive (relations or fertility treatments etc.) or it won't occur. It can't happen spontaneously without some effort on our part.
Not for nothing chazal say there are three partners in procreation: the man, the woman and Hashem. All three have to be active in some way in order for conception to occur.

Raisin

Thu, Dec 10 2015, 9:00 am

I don't think I've heard people use that phrase. Most people say, I'm pregnant, or we're expecting.

But I don't think becoming pregnant is an active thing. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. You can try really hard for many years and it won't happen or you can have a one night stand using birth control and it does happen. Having relations is only part of it. The rest is up to Hashem and biology.

smss

Thu, Dec 10 2015, 10:46 am

I was just thinking of where I've heard the term "fall" in the context of pregnancy in Israel. A miscarriage is called a הפלה - I assumed from נפל - is that right?

(Always thought that was a weird word for a miscarriage.)

etky

Thu, Dec 10 2015, 10:53 am

smss wrote:

Actually in halachic terminology, a נפל (nefel) is a still born fetus or one born at term with no chance of survival. I guess the word הפלה comes from that and both must come from the verb נפל

33055

Thu, Dec 10 2015, 10:56 am

Raisin wrote:

It irks me when someone says, "we're pregnant."