Couvade is a term which was coined by anthropologist E. B. Tylor in 1865 to refer to certain rituals in several cultures that fathers adopt during pregnancy. Couvade can be traced to Ancient Egypt as a "sacred birth custom, of when a child is born, the man experiences the ritual of "labor" in which he takes to his bed, and undergoes periods of fasting and purification, and the observance of certain taboos".The term "couvade" is borrowed from French (where it is derived from the verb couver "to brood, hatch"); the use in the modern sense derives from a misunderstanding of an earlier idiom faire la couvade, which meant "to sit doing nothing. "An example of couvade is that the Cantabri people had a custom in which the father, during or immediately after the birth of a child, took to bed, complained of having labour pains, and was accorded the treatment usually shown to women during pregnancy or after childbirth. Similarly, in Papua New Guinea, fathers built a hut outside the village and mimicked the pains of labour until the baby is born. Similar rituals occur in other cultural groups in Thailand, Russia, China, India and many indigenous groups in the Americas. In some cultures, "sympathetic pregnancy" is attributed to efforts to ward off demons or spirits from the mother or seek favour of supernatural beings for the child. Couvade has been reported by travelers throughout history, including the Greek geographer Strabo (3.4.17).
Management
Currently, buccal exostoses do not commonly require treatment. If there is neither pain nor sensitivity, the buccal exostosis simply needs to be monitored with routine dental check-ups. Patients are given oral hygiene advice and are advised to cleanse above and below the growth with a mouthwash once a day to remove any food debris. Due to it being difficult to clean around the exostosis, periodontal disease can often occur as a result, and so this should be treated by the dentist or dental hygienist/therapist. There are, however, some occasions were treatment is required, for example;

If the skin overlying it is continually experiencing trauma due to sharp foods,
A prosthesis, such as a denture, is required and cannot be adapted to the exostosis,
The growth reaches an unmanageable size,
Aesthetic reasons.If the growth needs to be removed then a simple surgical procedure can be carried out under local anaesthetic with no recurrence in the long-term follow up. This is done by reflecting the mucoperiosteal flap in order to expose the extended bone for complete excision. This bone will then be sent for histopathological examination to differentiate from benign to malignant neoplastic processes. Routine post-operative instructions are given to the patient and occasionally antibiotics may be prescribed. The patient will then be recalled after 1 week in order to remove the sutures and often after a few months for post-operative follow up. Epidemiology
They are more common in males than females, occurring in a ratio of about 5:1. They are strongly associated with the presence of torus mandibularis and torus palatinus.