Is she or isn’t she? Stop playing bump bingo!

Maybe she is preggers, which is lovely for her. BUT MAYBE SHE’S NOT. And yet we stare at and comment on her shape and size for sport.

This strikes a particularly brutal chord with me after an experience in a local chemist a few months ago. Popped in for some Piriton to tackle the hayfever. “Let me just check if this is ok to take whilst your pregnant”, she said, gesturing to what she had assumed to be my bump (more accurately, a food baby/). Stunned silence & dropped jaw from me. “You are pregnant, aren’t you? I just noticed.” JUST STOP.

2 yr old was perched on my hip, admittedly not a flattering posture. But still. A couple of weeks before, a friend had been asked when she was due by a shopkeeper (her baby was about 4 months old).

In my work with pregnant women, I regularly hear that strangers or acquaintances are commenting on their shape and size (big, small, round, all bump, not pregnant from the back, must be boy/girl/whopper in there). It seems we can’t help ourselves- a pregnancy (even if imagined) prompts us to share our observations about a woman’s body like nothing else.

I sort of get it in the chemists. A sense of responsibility- fair enough. But the retailers, acquaintances, the wider world, the paps outside your door, just need to mind their own business. Pregnancy is a time of real vulnerability, when the wellbeing of our baby is all we can consider, and even a throwaway comment can leave us concerned. The pregnant amongst us should be afforded discretion and privacy.

And those of us dutifully nurturing our food babies would appreciate it too…..

Keri Jarvis is founder of The Baby Project, Leigh on Sea & HypnoBirthdays

www.thebabyprojectleighonsea.co.uk www.hypnobirthdays.com