Ten days after delivering, Jaime Pressly was back in the gym and was quoted as saying, "I'm almost back to where I was before." A standing joke was that Nicole Ritchie had a grape in her belly, not a baby.

"Thin is the strongest fashion statement around," says Dr. Carol Livoti, an OB/GYN and co-author of The Stress-Free Pregnancy Guide: A Doctor Tells You What to Really Expect (Amacom, 2008). "The U.S. is the most weight-obsessed country (ironically) in the history of the human race. Too fat, too thin, BMI, muscle-to-fat ratios, you cannot pick up a magazine or newspaper without reading about weight."

Is it any wonder, then, that "pregorexia," or women striving to be super thin while pregnant, is on the rise?

"Pregorexia is a pop-psychology term, not a medical term," says Dr. Sari Shepphird, a clinical psychologist and eating disorders specialist with 20 years of experience. "Officially, a woman with this condition would be considered an anorexic or other eating disorder patient, depending on the symptoms that are present."

For example, Dr. Shepphird says, if the pregnant mother is considered to weigh less than 85 percent of her expected weight, based on height, weight and expected pregnancy weight gain, she would likely be diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. If she weighs more than 85 percent of her expected weight, but is still underweight and has eating disorder symptoms (purging, fasting), she may be diagnosed as having another eating disorder.

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