A 52-year-old had to be hospitalised after he kept insisting he was pregnant with a child in Kozhikode, India.
The unemployed father of two children, who has a postgraduate degree, cited abnormal sensations in his abdomen and believed that he was carrying a child.
He refused to believe that men do not get pregnant and claimed that he could feel the baby moving inside, insisting on bed rest and skipped labour-intensive work.
According to Indian Times, his worried brother took him to a hospital after he developed nausea and curbed his food intake. The man admitted that he “conceived” after he’s had sex with men.
Dr P N Suresh Kumar, who headed a team of doctors at KMCT, after several tests concluded that the patient was nursing a delusion which in itself is an unusual case. His brother told mystified doctors that the strange delusion started around six months ago.
Kumar said delusion is a fixed abnormal belief about something.
“We never came across this sort of case before. He was an active homosexual in his adolescent years which may have contributed to his beliefs.
“But, his homosexuality did not affect his marriage.Usually , we see couvade syndrome in some dads-to-be who show certain symptoms of pregnancy (like nausea, weight gain or sleep problems) when their partners get pregnant,” he said.
Interestingly, the doctors couldn’t detect any gender identity disorders, gender dysphoria, hallucinations, depression or anxiety during treatment and the various test results showed that he was normal, the report said.
This delusion had however been cured due to the medical intervention. After a series of counselling sessions, he stopped indulging in homosexual activities. Now, the patient is recovering and we are measuring his progress during periodic check-ups, Kumar said.
