This woman has a medically-recognised fear of pregnancy

She wants people to learn about her phobia.

A woman in the UK has gone to extreme lengths to avoid pregnancy. We're not talking about three types of contraception or anything like that, she avoids all types of pregnancy - from baby scans, to mums-to-be and getting pregnant herself. According to The Daily Mail, Lizzie Doxsey, from Swansea, has been diagnosed with tokophobia – the medically-recognised fear of pregnancy and childbirth. She has spent thousands of pounds on pregnancy tests for fear that she would be pregnant herself. She also keeps one on hand in case she ever feels anxious about the possibility that she might be pregnant. Speaking about her phobia, she said:

"People don't always understand tokophobia. They either think it's funny, or get offended. I  feel guilty when it upsets people, because I don't choose to feel this way.

I keep a stash of pregnancy tests by my bed, and whether I've been seeing someone or not, once that seed of doubt is in my mind, I'll have to take one to calm down.

I'm fine around older babies or toddlers. It's just newborns as they're so fragile that you feel as if you're going to break them. I'm not sure exactly what it is about pregnancy that frightens me. I think it's the loss of control, almost like something is invading you and taking over your body."

The fear isn't just limited to herself, with other people's pregnancies causing her stress. She has deleted friends from Facebook to avoid seeing any of their pregnancy-related updates. Usually, she chooses to just hide them for the nine month period but one friend kept sharing videos of the baby in the womb and it became too much for her so she decided to delete her.

Lizzy has said that she wants to share her story to raise awareness of tokophobia.

"I hope by sharing my story people will understand more about tokophobia, and that just like any fear, there's not always a rational explanation.

I'd like people to try and think about how they feel when they're confronted by a snake or spider and that's how I feel about pregnancy. Just because it's not a common fear doesn't make it any less scary."