‘Pregnancy Roulette’: The TikTok trend fertility experts say is deeply harmful, not harmless fun

There’s a new TikTok trend doing the rounds called “pregnancy roulette”, and on the surface, it looks like harmless girl-group chaos. A bunch of friends take pregnancy tests, toss them into a bowl, and pull them out one by one to reveal whether anyone is expecting. It’s designed for shock, squeals and viral views.

But for many women, pregnancy tests aren’t props. Experts say they’re symbols of trauma, grief and years of unmet hope. And for those navigating infertility or pregnancy loss, this trend isn’t quirky or shocking; it’s deeply destabilising.

The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives brought that reality into sharp focus. In an episode, cast member Demi Engemann, who has been open about her long struggle with infertility, was handed a positive test that wasn’t hers. On camera, she collapsed into tears. Off camera, thousands of women watching online said they felt the gut punch with her.

When the ‘game’ stops being a game

Infertility and pregnancy-loss counsellor Lucy Kemp says the entire concept hinges on something people outside this world rarely consider: vulnerability.

“The big word for me in all of this is vulnerability. Big, big word.”

She said trends like this erase the reality that for people who have endured loss, miscarriages or rounds of IVF, even holding a pregnancy test can be emotionally loaded.

“To turn a moment of such vulnerability into a game is, in my world, completely disrespectful.”

Ms Kemp said the impact becomes even clearer when you ask the women who’ve lived through it. She raised the trend with one of her clients, a woman navigating infertility and pregnancy loss, and the response was immediate.

“The first word that came up to her was ‘completely disrespectful,’” Ms Kemp says.

“She said they get to still have that naivety, that playfulness… once a woman has been through any sort of loss, they never get that again.”

Because for many, the moment you pee on a stick is the opposite of playful.

“Those women doing that still have that naivety, that frivolity, the playfulness of ‘ha ha, let’s see if we’re pregnant’. Once a woman has been through infertility or pregnancy loss, she never gets that again.”

Ms Kemp said that “blissful naivety” disappears forever after loss, replaced with fear, caution and protective detachment.

“I have never, in 13 years of doing this, met a woman who has been through fertility struggles or pregnancy loss who then gets pregnant and just thinks, ‘Oh my God, this is great, it’s all going to be fine.’”

And beyond the creators themselves, there’s the impact on viewers, women scrolling social media who may unexpectedly run into the trend at a fragile moment.

“For women who are living the experience of infertility or pregnancy loss, social media can be incredibly risky, triggering and confronting because they just don’t know what they’re going to be exposed to on any given day.”

Fertility specialist Dr Rachael Rodgers from IVF Australia says she “can’t imagine anyone who has struggled to conceive ever wanting to be involved in any way.”

“I think it would just be too upsetting.”

She says the emotional weight behind pregnancy tests is impossible to understand unless you’ve lived it, especially in a scenario where someone draws a positive result that isn’t theirs.

“It’s almost incomprehensible for someone who hasn’t been in that situation to know what that person is feeling.”

“To have been trying and then pull out a pregnancy test that is positive, you’d be desperately, desperately hoping that it was yours, but not knowing — that’s hard.”

And in IVF, there’s an added complication: medication can cause false-positive tests for up to a week after treatment.

“For about a week after that trigger injection, people can get a false positive pregnancy test.”

In a group setting, that can quickly spiral.

Dr Rodgers notes that some people share every step of their fertility journey — but many others tell no one.

“Some people are very open about it… Other people are very, very private and literally the only people in the world who know they’re having fertility treatment are their partner and their doctor.”

Add a public “pregnancy reveal” game to the mix, and the emotional impact becomes even more fraught.

Hidden grief and silent trauma

Both experts agree the biggest misconception is that you can “tell” who is struggling. You can’t.

Dr Rodgers said, “You never know what someone else is going through. Just because someone goes to work or social functions with a smile on their face doesn’t mean they’re not going through something really upsetting.”

She recalled women undergoing cancer treatment who said the idea of losing fertility is more devastating than the diagnosis.

“For some women, the idea of having cancer is less distressing than the idea that they may never be able to have a baby.”

This intensity is what trends like “pregnancy roulette” fail to take into account.

When asked to describe the trend, Dr Rodgers said, “I would probably say ‘naive’ or ‘potentially traumatic’, those would be the words that I’d use to describe this trend.”

The emotional mask

Ms Kemp said one of the most painful dynamics she sees is women “wearing a mask”, joining in with social situations to avoid awkwardness, even when they’re deeply vulnerable.

“You never know who is sitting there wearing a mask, going along with the game because they want to conform, when in fact they are deeply invested in the outcome.”

The aftermath, she said, is often worse: the pressure to pretend you’re fine, the questions, the scrutiny.

Jealousy, guilt and the pressure to perform joy

Ms Kemp believes one emotion shows up almost universally in infertility: the sting of other people’s pregnancy news.

“I’ve never met a woman who is not triggered by other people’s pregnancy news. Never.”

Women often feel guilty for not reacting with unfiltered happiness.

Her response to that guilt is one she regularly shares in therapy, “What if you’re allowed to be happy for them but sad for you?”

It’s this emotional complexity — joy for others, grief for yourself — that viral trends flatten into a binary: someone “wins,” someone “loses.”

A case for sensitivity

Neither expert argues that pregnancy content must disappear from the internet. But both stress that a line is crossed when something as emotionally charged as a pregnancy test becomes a novelty.

Dr Rodgers said awareness alone can make a huge difference.

“It’s very naive to think that doing this kind of pregnancy roulette thing is just a bit of fun, because it’s potentially really harmful.”

Her advice for people sharing pregnancy news with a struggling friend is simple, “Take them aside… be aware that it’s going to be really hurtful for them… that sensitivity is really helpful.”

Ms Kemp summed the issue up this way: the trend is built on a type of carefree innocence many people never get to experience again.

Dr Rodgers puts it in one final reminder, “Most of the time we can help people. If someone is worried and upset about their fertility, they should be talking to a specialist.”