Disgusting comment an old woman made to me on the bus. Now I’m furious… why shouldn’t I show off my pregnant stomach: FLORA GILL

‘That top doesn’t really fit you any more, does it?’ A lady on the bus said this to me with a wry smile. Her words could have passed for friendly but there was palpable condemnation beneath them as her eyes scanned my torso.

The reason? My top had spilled upwards leaving my heavily pregnant tummy on show. And according to a new study, only celebrities can get away with such a shameless display of skin when expecting.

Scientists at the University of South Florida suggest the rest of us should ‘cover up’ as their research found showing one’s bump ‘undermines women’s perceived humanness’.

That’s right – people apparently see mothers-to-be as less human when they show their stomachs.

It beggars belief, and yet that woman on the bus made me feel something similar. Painfully self-conscious, I initially shrunk down in my seat and tried to cover my mid-section with my arms.

Quickly, however, that embarrassment turned to fury – at her and all the other strangers who had ogled and tutted when my protruding belly had popped out in public over the past few months.

Their judgement only made me want to flaunt it more, to deliberately weed out the people who had a problem with me.

My son, Jesse, is now nine months old but, thanks to this woman, I began showing my ‘naked’ (gasp) bump more and more – and I even arranged this photoshoot, so I could remember how my pregnant body looked with pride.

It might surprise you to learn that my husband really encouraged this. He saw me struggling to find a top that completely covered my new shape without drowning me. He instead suggested I go the other way, and should embrace my pregnancy by picking out a crop top that didn’t hide my baby… because there was nothing shameful about him.

Try telling that to the writers of this report though. It dictates that while celebrities like Rihanna can get away with amplifying their bumps, your average mum-in-waiting could face negative consequences.

When showing their bumps ‘others objectify them’, and doing so could even contribute to people thinking they ‘would be an unfit mother and should be denied financial support’.

This feels like a maddeningly nonsensical leap. But then society does set the bar for the perfect mother as one who’s modest and sexless, covering up her skin and ideally wearing a permanent pinafore. Having your bump out must surely, therefore, convey the opposite – that you’re vain and unreliable, prioritising yourself and your fashion over your baby.

If you’re a pregnant woman reading this, you might be ready to crawl under a duvet and hibernate for the remainder of your nine months in that one baggy T-shirt that still fits. Because even without this nausea-inducing study, dressing when you’re pregnant is already a nightmare.

Your entire body is changing every day – one week it could be your stomach that’s ‘popped’, then suddenly your chest is heaving out of your tops like you’re in Bridgerton and your feet swell to look freakishly large.

Your wardrobe can’t be expected to expand at the same pace. And it feels ridiculous to spend on clothes with less shelf life than an avocado especially when, spoiler alert, your impending child is about to be its own financial black hole. When I first went shopping for maternity clothes, it was a disaster – I had to choose between uncomfortable or frumpy.

I gave up on clothes made for pregnant women and instead tried to purchase dresses I could wear again with floaty skirts and elasticated waists.

I loathed trying to dress for formal occasions such as weddings. I found that either you wear something form-fitting and people think you’re attention-seeking, or you wear something baggy, and they think you’ve put in no effort.

Plus, it’s a complicated time for how you view your changing body. It’s doing something incredible but it can also feel like it’s betraying you. At points in my pregnancy I felt hot and uncomfortable with sore feet, my joints ached, my muscles cramped and my back was in pain from sleepless nights. Even my teeth started to feel loose as the baby sucked the calcium from my bones.

So if you find an outfit you feel good in, the last thing you want to think about is the judgement of others. And if that outfit, especially in the height of summer, shows your new swollen stomach, is that a problem?

I don’t care who it offends, or upsets, or makes uneasy. If I still had my beautiful bump now I would use it to body-slam the self-righteous faces of every person questioned in that study.

Perhaps I could use my saggy skin to suffocate them all and listen to them cry beneath my muffling stretch marks.

If tomorrow I turned around and somehow produced a fully functioning iPhone 16 from my uterus, it would make front-page news. They’d probably say I could wear whatever I liked to pull off such a coup. Well, making a human being is so much more impressive than that.

If post-marathon runners across London can sit in cafes in sweaty Lycra, and Scots can wear kilts at weddings, why can’t I wear whatever the hell I feel comfortable and proud in, while quietly sewing together a spinal cord, or putting the finishing touches to a nervous system?

And if pregnant women were to have a uniform, it should be an outfit sewn from the softest cashmere and extravagant gold thread that highlighted, rather than covered up, the miraculous act happening beneath it.

Equally, I think that if they want to, pregnant women should be able to walk around completely naked and not be looked at with anything but appreciation.

Yet when it comes to how we present ourselves, there is no way for any woman, pregnant or otherwise, to win.

You’re accused of wearing too much make-up and looking trampy, or not enough make-up and looking plain. Your clothes are too revealing or too prudish. You look juvenile or matronly. People hate it when a woman ages but look down on anyone who’s had obvious work done.

If you spent your life trying to avoid judgement, you wouldn’t be able to function with the stress of adhering to a thousand contradictory conditions. And if there’s ever a time when you shouldn’t give a toss what anyone else thinks, it’s when you’re pregnant.

Reproducing life itself is as close to being a god as any of us can hope to get. You are certainly galactic miles closer to celestial status than those judging you for showing a little flesh. And gods do not bother themselves with the opinions of mortals.