I was the first in my peer group to get pregnant. All I craved was reassurance. I needed someone to tell me that all the seemingly random symptoms I had - weird things, such as excess saliva - were normal. And I was worried because I wasn't getting any morning sickness.

When I was first pregnant, which was, let's see, in nineteen-eighty-three - I remember wearing a regular bathing suit to my in-laws' pool. It was just like a spandex one-piece, completely modest, and yet people were looking at me like it was obscene.

Taking pre-natal vitamins can minimise birth defects and can lower the chances both of morning sickness and premature delivery.

It doesn't take a brain surgeon... or a cardiologist... or a pediatrician... or even a policy wonk to figure out that a penny's worth of preventive care is worth many dollars of sick care.