Definition of "puerperium" []

• The state of a woman during childbirth or immediately thereafter. (noun)
• The approximate six-week period lasting from childbirth to the return of normal uterine size. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "So it was that I entered my puerperium, which is gynecological for the time of recovery after delivering, the time of post-partum elation."
• "Popularly spoken of as the "lying-in period," and medically known as the puerperium, this time of convalescence immediately following childbirth is usually occupied by two important things: the restoration of the pelvic organs to their normal condition before pregnancy, and the starting of that wonderfully adaptative mechanism concerned with the production of the varying and daily changing food supply of the offspring."
• "Nor will the inscription upon the altar serve to establish Pliny's opinion; because Agrippina was delivered of two daughters in that country, and any child-birth, without regard to sex, is called puerperium, as the ancients were used to call girls puerae, and boys puelli."