First off: hair dye. Could getting highlights harm your baby? According to Emily Manning of Maternity and Infantmagazine, you should switch to organic dye if you want to keep your hair glowing as you do.

"I think a lot of the doctors and GPs really just recommend vegetable dye. It should be perfectly safe, " Manning says, advising people to check with their GP before their hairdresser if they have any doubts.

Another enduring old wives' tale has women the world over reaching for the step ladder . . . if you stretch your arms above your head, you run the risk of your baby getting tangled in the umbilical cord. This myth is pure fiction. "It really doesn't have anything to do with reaching, " says Manning.

The umbilical catches around the baby's neck in about one-quarter of all births as a result of the baby moving around, not the mother.

As for exercise, it's another question to put to the GP: "The main thing is that exercise can be very healthy . . . it can lead to a healthy pregnancy and make things a little bit easier, " Manning says. "But I think a lot of doctors would recommend that you don't take up exercise when you're pregnant and give your body a shock. It's something you maintain or take up some gentle alternatives . . .

maybe something like yoga."

Maybe the biggest myth about pregnancy is the old eating-for-two hoax. Yes, it might be a great excuse for an extra dinner, but your body really doesn't need double the amount of calories.

"You need to gain between 10 and 12 kilos during pregnancy, " says Margot Brennan of the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute.

"That's about 300 extra calories a day, which is not a huge amount. It's an extra sandwich or an extra piece of fruit and a yoghurt."

Pregnant women should stay away from soft cheese and pate, because they can contain a bacteria called lysteria that causes miscarriages. A portion of oily fish once a week is a good idea, but try to avoid very big fish like marlon and shark. Brennan recommends checking with your GP or dietician before taking any supplements . . . vitamin A can be very harmful.

Believe it or not, there is no scientific evidence for cravings, no matter how many gherkin-and-peanut-butter sandwiches you feel like eating.

"People crave anything, from the most ridiculous foodstuffs that have no nutritional value to foods that might appear that your body is looking for. But that whole thing is really a myth. It's really hormonally driven, and it's nothing to do with your actual nutritional needs, " says Brennan. So there's no truth to the rumour that if a pregnant woman is denied her craving, her child will be born with a birthmark of that food, then.

Another craving-related pregnancy fiction that grandmothers love to recount is that if a women craves salty foods, she's having a boy; if it's sweets she's after, it's going to be a girl. Not true, according to Emily Manning:

"It sounds like an excuse to me."

A lot of pregnancy myths concern the gender of the baby, she says. "There are other ones, like the one about the heart rate . . . if the heart rate is higher, it means it's a girl;

if it's lower, it means it's a boy. There was one about morning sickness . . . if you suffer from morning sickness quite severely and if it continues throughout your pregnancy, that's supposed to symbolise that it's a girl. Whereas if you can eat and you don't have morning sickness, it's a boy. So I think people having boys tend to get off a lot lighter than people having girls."

A lot of these myths are enduring, of course, because each has a 50-50 chance of being right. Some people still swear they can tell a baby's gender by the size and shape of a mother's bump.

"I think it's if you're carrying low, you're having a boy, and if you're carrying across the middle and higher up then it's a girl, " says Manning. "But there's really no proof in that. It's all determined by your muscles and your own body condition, your own uterine muscles and things, as well as the condition of the baby."

The only conclusive way to know the gender of your baby is to get an ultrasound . . .

though these aren't 100% accurate, either.

"The only way you're ever going to know is when you get to hold your baby, " says Manning.

"But there are some [myths] out there that are really nonsensical, and it's just a bit of fun to say 'if your husband or your partner puts on weight while you're pregnant, it's a girl, and if he doesn't put on anything, it's a boy'."

Sounds like it's not only mothers looking for an excuse to pile on the pounds, then.