1. Try to come to a philosophical accommodation with unsolicited attention (bump-touching is one that annoys many mothers-to-be). The intrusive questions about whether you planned the pregnancy (from your boss), the helpful advice about not eating that piece of peanut butter toast (from a childless male friend), the inquiries about the state of your perineum (from a stranger in the park), the opinions on how big your bump is (from undersize to shockingly outsize, depending on the observer) will only give way to a world of advice about your choice of name, your baby's health and your parenting techniques. Take a breath and remember that having a baby pulls you back into your community. The downside is that people feel free to intrude into your life. Try to let it wash over you.
2. Don't listen to other women's bad birth stories. Some women hang around, Ancient Mariner-like, sniffing the air for newly pregnant women to waylay and terrify. They could be anyone - your sister-in-law, your colleague, your best friend. The temptation for a newly pregnant woman is to listen to any piece of information you can get. This is not information you need. Run away.
3. Do educate yourself in other ways. Classes are good. Both because they present information in a non-scary way and because they introduce you to people with whom you may want to hang out when you have become too boring and lachrymose to lead an ordinary social life.
4. If you are very frightened of the pain, consider investigating techniques such as hypnobirthing (using self-hypnosis techniques during labour to help you cope with pain). And keep an open mind about the drugs.
5. Do not fret excessively about the public display of your nethers during childbirth. Some expectant mothers are booking Brazilians long after they have ceased to be able to view the relevant parts of their anatomy. Don't do it just to spare the aesthetic sensibilities of the medical staff. They are not going to gossip about your overgrown ladygarden. They don't care. And nor, probably, will you. Ninety-nine out of 100 mothers will be snorting gas and air and offering to show the cleaner their cervix.
6. Go shopping. You no longer have to choose between the Princess Di tent-with-pussy-bow look or the toddler-in-dungarees style. There are all manner of over- and under- bump styles, strange fixings, wrapover thingies and expandable fasteners out there. Try things on rather than just buying a lot of clobber off the internet. You really need to work out what is comfortable for you, covers you up, doesn't fall open when you move and is not beyond your skills to get on in the first place.
7. Eat what you can and don't feel guilty. If you have morning sickness and/or heartburn, you may not be able to consume a diet of organic fruits and vegetables or anything much at all. Many women spend weeks on a diet of Haribo sweets and ginger ale.
8. Don't wind yourself up too much if you can't sleep - whether because of pregnancy insomnia or physical discomfort in its pregnancy forms. Get what rest you can.
9. Everyone gets their own strange subset of pregnancy symptoms, most of which you will have never previously heard of - restless legs, legs that swell up and turn into memory foam so that they retain the impression of your hand, waking in a pool of drool, olfactory superpowers ...
10. Don't expect to look beautiful. It could happen: some women bounce glowingly through the whole proceedings, like great womanly Space Hoppers full of benign hormones. Others look like pantechnicons in frightwigs.
Above all, remember that for every piece of advice there is an equally valid and opposite piece of advice that will apply to some other woman (apart from a few universally true adages such as "Now is not the time to explore a new career in nuclear waste disposal").
• This advice is taken from Pregnancy: The Mumsnet Guide, from Bloomsbury, out on 7 September, £12.99
