metaception
Metaception is a term used in some interdisciplinary and theoretical contexts to describe a meta-level study of pregnancy and its outcomes, emphasizing factors that lie beyond the cellular and hormonal processes of gestation. The term is not part of the standard obstetric or developmental biology vocabulary, and its usage varies by author. In its broadest sense, metaception encompasses the social, cultural, economic, and environmental conditions surrounding pregnancy, as well as how these conditions interact with biology to shape fetal development and later health. It may also denote analytical approaches that treat pregnancy as embedded in a wider system, including policy environments, healthcare access, and stigma, rather than as an isolated physiological state.
In some discussions, metaception is linked to the idea that preconception and prenatal contexts can influence
Related concepts include epigenetics, fetal programming, maternal effects, and social determinants of health, which share some