Pregnant women are easily scared. In their very first antenatal appointment they will be told which foods to avoid. The list has grown since I had my first child. Then it was blue cheese and dairy products made with non-sterilised milk. Now it includes all soft cheeses with “bloomy” rinds, oily fish, liver, pâté and cured meat and any raw fresh ingredient – meat, shellfish or egg. Pregnant women, says NHS Choices, are advised never to eat home-made mayonnaise, for example, or raw mince.

They are also advised to wash fruit and vegetables for fear of developing toxoplasmosis from fragments of soil on the fruit. One has the sense that this list will continue to grow, and that nervous mothers will increasingly endure their pregnancies ever more fearful, and not in a state of happy excitement.