It has ever been the case that women have been watched, judged, and found wanting. But it’s next level big-brothering for pregnant women. Look, I know it mostly comes from a good place. Because we care. And it’s true that when we really want to coddle someone, we often do a deep dive into the Google data, try to come up with a helpful plan, so they don’t have to. When women are cocooning their baby we want, in turn, to provide that shielding forcefield around them. We want to cook the healthiest meals, while being mindful of their aversions. We want to let them sleep longer, give them a seat on the train, carry their shopping, do their chores, massage their sore backs…  of course that’s lovely, but it’s all too easy to go overboard. Our unending concern, constant advice, multitude of unwritten rules, all dished out 24/7 by people you know and plenty that you don’t, can be quite stressful. It feels like the pregnancy police are constantly judging your choices. We need to find the middle ground.

It used to be worse. The pregnancy cops (in cahoots with the woman-phobic major deities whose archaic laws were still followed unquestioningly) ruled that a respectable (married) woman should conceal her condition since her condition was the visible result of her having had sex. It was tricky, because she was supposed to have sex and procreate, but she kinda had to be a bit discreet about it. Confused? Don’t think about it, just accept it. Luckily she would have entered house arrest, I mean confinement, in the later stage of pregnancy, so modesty was assured. Phew! And whether or not a corset was de rigueur, her ample gown revealed nothing. Still, the  pregnancy police were never far, advising borderline crazy diets, very specific levels and types of activity, and acceptable attire, just as they do now.

I need to be wary of the rose-tinted bifocals (they give you 20/20 hindsight) but… back in the early naughties when I first qualified as a midwife, things were simpler. I told woman they could have the odd small glass of wine, they shouldn’t eat too much shark (too much mercury), or liver (too much vitamin A), or home made mayonnaise (possibility of salmonella). Smoking was frowned upon and drugs were off limits. Few were the women who couldn’t adhere to these recommendations. You could have a home birth if you were lucky and lived in the right postcode. You couldn’t have a cesarean unless you or your baby had less than 30 minutes to live. Routine enemas had recently been abolished as had routine episiotomies. We’d relaxed the rather ambitious 1cm per hour cervical dilation rule to 1cm every 2 hours. I mean, it wasn’t perfect. We talked the talk about bodily autonomy for the mother but we weren’t always great at listening. We never disturbed the on-call consultant after hours. That’s the thing about the good old bad old days. Some things were better, others not so much. But the pregnancy police was taking a little mini break. Partly because the deities had lost ground to women’s lib (phew) and also because there was no Internet to broadcast the so-called rules, and no social media on which to flaunt how well you were complying with them. Just as well, because you’d have seen the pregnant me (on my days off) lying supine on my sofa, wearing PJs, eating poppadoms and pizza, watching daytime TV, blissfully unaware I should have been feeling guilty.

It’s great that we can be respectably unmarried,  keep our jobs, wear what we want, get paid mat-leave instead of confinement, and mostly decent advice from trained health care professionals instead of old wives tales. It’s fabulous that we no longer have to hit the shops when we are too tired, too nauseous, too achey, too pregnant, because the shops now come to us. It’s amazing we can work from home when the commute is so hideous that our bumps aren’t noticed, let alone our Baby on Board badges. But there’s so much choice and information and freedom, it’s not always easy to know what to do. The only thing we know for sure is that we’re doing it wrong. Others are doing it better. And the pregnancy police keep finding new ways to ruin our peace.

Happily I can now debunk some of the crazier rules.

Firstly, for heavens sake, be kind to yourself. If that means taking modern medicine (as prescribed by your obstetrician who knows what is safe in pregnancy) then do that. There are several anti-sickness medications available if your so-called morning sickness is an all day vom-fest. There are proper antacids for the kind of gut wrenching heartburn that gaviscon just won’t touch. There’s decent pain relief for when paracetamol doesn’t even touch the sides. None of them cause autism. There are plenty of antidepressants that will keep you well and are safe in pregnancy (not least because if you are well, you are much more able to make sensible self-care choices which will positively impact your baby). Vaccines will keep you and baby safe from nasty preventable illnesses. It’s magic that your amazing immune system can be trained to deal with infections in a nonchalant, she’s-had-her-wheetabix kinda way. If your blood pressure goes haywire, the antihypertensive meds will literally keep you alive. Antibiotics are pretty awesome too. And don’t even get me started on the wonders of the epidural. Basically, anything that keeps you alive AND COMFORTABLE is a good thing. Some people will tell you to suck up the discomfort, it’s only nine months, but these are usually the people who get hideous man-flu. If people who are susceptible to man-flu could get pregnant, well, parental leave would start upon detection of those two blue lines and dumb edicts about paracetamol would be branded hate-speech.

The caffeine ban can also be ignored.  Hallelujah. Is there any time you need caffeine more than when you are pregnant? You’re growing a baby on minimal slumber: your bladder has shrunk; your baby is relentlessly nocturnal and punching your compressed bladder; you’re training up some newbie to do your job while hoping they don’t steal it; you’re somewhat concerned about the impending birth… all this while working full time… and the pregnancy police want you to forgo your morning brew? Purleeeeease! The NHS guidelines say you can have 3 cups of coffee. You are welcome!

The pregnancy police are very keen for pregnant women to quit drinking. But according to my favourite pregnancy guru, Emily Oster, the evidence for total abstinence is actually non-existent. Ms Oster is a bona fide data analyst. If a correlation exists  she won’t just spot it, she’ll sift through the data to work out if it is causative.  Think of it this way: epidurals are linked with long labours, for sure. But do they cause long labours or are they taken up by women who have already been labouring for over 24 hours? I’d wager it’s the latter. Thus correlation isn’t always causation. We know for sure that binge drinking is bad in pregnancy (newsflash, it’s always bad) but also there’s zero evidence that the odd small glass of wine will do any harm. The reason this is important is that the logical (if rather radical) next step to banning all alcohol in pregnancy is to ban all women of childbearing age from alcohol too, because we don’t actually know that we’re pregnant in the first 2 or 3 weeks after conception. So the up-the-duff cops could technically argue that we’re all potentially pregnant all the time. You’d think that would be impossible. But who’d have thought Roe vs Wade would be overturned? The pregnancy police get away with all kinds of antifeministic cr@p because nobody wants to be subjected to the guilt and shame attributed (usually unfairly) to a terrible mother. So: instead of feeling remorse for having had a few boozy nights at or around conception, we should remind ourselves our blood circulation is separate to our foetus’s until a little after implantation, ie when the placenta is formed. This gives us a grace period which has probably saved humanity! Remember, if we’d been sober, we likely wouldn’t have landed ourselves with a bun in the oven! Once we are confirmed gestationally-challenged, we can still enjoy the odd glass of bubbles (no vodka shots though) without repercussions to the baby. The abundance of what-iffery is crazy and deeply unhelpful. Also, I recently looked after a couple who’d thought she was past childbearing age but discovered that she wasn’t when the man did Dry January. Turns out his healthy, mobile sober sperm was perfectly capable of locating that ovum. So if you’re a guy of childbearing age (13 to 80) you probably shouldn’t drink. Just sayin’!

I’m delighted to inform you that you may sleep in any position you find comfortable. Both my guru and my consultant agree on this. I cannot overstate how angry the ‘sleep on your left side’ so-called rule made me. How dare the pregnancy police make demands on how you sleep? You know me, I take sleep very seriously.  When we are lucky enough to be asleep, we cannot control our position,  and the suggestion that we should (for example) tie our hair in a bun specifically to cause discomfort when we are supine (but not flat, the heartburn absolutely prohibits lying flat, we have three pillows) is preposterous. Sleep isn’t easy in pregnancy (did I mention our pesky bladder? The acid reflux? The anxiety? The nocturnal cramps?) Adding enforced immobility to the list simply guaranteed that sleep was off limits for all pregnant women. I lost count of the tears at antenatal appointments as exhausted and terrified women confess to having woken up on their back, convinced they’d caused their baby untold harm. But our total capitulation to what-iffery has affected our ability to spot rubbish ‘research’ and ignore it. Thank you Ms Oster for debunking that one.

Some of you loyal readers will know I’m a cyclist. I do enjoy my commute to work on my bike, not least because it allows me to eat chocolate. I enjoyed it for a short while when I was pregnant with Only Daughter. To be honest, I rarely followed my own (professional) advice about diet or exercise when I was pregnant. I was just too tired. And too hungry. But I also quickly discovered that people’s attitudes towards pregnant cyclists are odd: all of a sudden they are extra concerned about your safety and they worry that you won’t be able to cope with your evolving centre of gravity. No such concerns arise if I cycle with a backpack even though I’d argue that this abruptly changes my centre of gravity. Cycling is great low-impact exercise which is perfect in pregnancy so it should be encouraged. And yes, more cycle lanes would be very much appreciated (I have written to my MP about this, to no avail), so the pregnancy cops could stop worrying about the unborn baby (and, as a bonus, its mother, and all the other cyclists).

I think the pregnancy police do take advantage of unsuspecting new mums. In the name of what-iffery and being seen to be a good mother, women are encouraged to spend a small fortune on unnecessary baby paraphernalia. Pregnant women are tired, anxious, hormonal and undercaffeinated. They are easy prey to unscrupulous influencers who are themselves influenced by the advertising money they can rake in by endorsing bogus miracle products. Or fancy gadgets.  Or foolishly expensive versions of baby basics, like prams which cost a month’s wages but won’t fit in your car, or branded baby clothes, or special nappy bins, or hospital grade breast pumps. But I have a particular bone to pick with the most expensive purveyors of pregnancy vitamins. You all know who I mean. If vitamins are necessary (they probably aren’t if you’re eating your five-a-day), the supermarket ones are perfectly adequate. Look, I do know how hard it is to eat your greens when your gut rules them temporarily inedible, but your baby will be fine. It will ruthlessly avail itself of all your nutrients, but you can replenish these later by resuming your reasonably sensible diet when your stomach settles. Do take folic acid in the first 12 weeks. Do take extra vitamin D. It’s cheap as chips. If you need extra iron, your  midwife will recommend supplements that you can get for free (assuming you can get your GP to prescribe them) or over the counter quite cheaply. Even if your posh vitamins do contain iron, it’s a tiny amount, which you could probably get from a bowl of cornflakes. (Ok, several bowls, but still) And don’t get me started on the anti-stretchmark creams. Some people get strechmarks. Some people don’t. There’s no justice. Anyway, stretch marks are a badge of honour. So: buy unbranded and second hand. Babies don’t care as long as they are fed, warm, clean and dry. They get expensive when they turn into brand-obsessed youngsters, so save your cash because I ain’t got no advice for you when that happens.

Do buy earplugs. That way you’ll be undisturbed by the torrent of unsolicited advice. Go easy on the socials. Remember that Google is not your obstetrician and will merely confirm your worst fears. It will give you nightmares. But do listen to your midwife. She’s got your back.

Ps Emily Oster is fabulous, but she has not paid me to say that. I do recommend you look her up though. She is the pregnancy police’s worst nightmare!