Slang dictionary
baby fever
摆产别测-产别别听fee-ver]
黑料网 does baby fever mean?
Baby fever is a colloquial term for the intense desire to have a baby.
Where does baby fever come from?
The term baby fever聽emerges by at least the 1990s, drawing on the long metaphorical use of fever for “passion” or “excitement.”
During the 2000s, online news sites and lifestyle publications began writing more frequently about baby fever, explaining what it is and why it happens鈥攁nd perhaps coinciding with public interest in a trend of women having children later in life. Serious media outlets like US News听补苍诲 Live Science聽notably discussed baby fever聽in 2011 after a study confirmed it is a real phenomenon both men and women have outside of any societal expectations regarding having children. The science of聽baby fever聽especially focuses on the concept of the biological clock, or the period a person (especially a woman) is fertile and can produce healthy babies. Meanwhile, other glossier publications, such as SheKnows.com, lighten baby fever聽with quizzes, for instance, for women to see if they are crazy about having a baby.
While聽baby fever聽was originally used of women, given stubborn stereotypes about childrearing in Western culture, the term was increasingly applied to men in the 2010s.
Examples of baby fever
...I do have baby fever something fierce though...
Who uses baby fever?
The expression聽baby fever is widely used, often humorously and affectionately, to describe a woman who is seen to desperately want a baby. While it’s common in internet slang, found on blog forums and social media, it’s also used in everyday speech. For example, if your friend recently saw a mother with a baby and can’t stop talking about how cute the baby was and how much she’d like to have one of her own, you might tell her she has a bad case of baby fever.
Films titled with the expression mildly poke fun at motherhood and the urgent need for a baby some women feel鈥攐r are stereotyped to feel. Example include the 1994聽Babyfever and the 2017 comedy Baby Fever. Plenty of authors also write about baby fever, titling their romance-fiction novels with the term, such as Kasey Michaels’s Baby Fever written in 1999 and Nicole Snow’s 2017聽Baby Fever Bride.
The slang聽baby fever聽should not be confused with a baby’s fever, which refers to an actual baby with a high temperature that could be caused by a medical illness.
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of baby fever like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of baby fever that will help our users expand their word mastery.