From one mum to another — the pregnancy gifts I'd have genuinely treasured
Finding the right pregnant friend gift is harder than it looks. The shops are full of pastel teddy bears and tiny shoes — sweet, but they're for the baby, not for her. And right now, your friend is the one growing a human, throwing up in the office bathroom, and getting kicked in the ribs at 3am. She is the one who could use a little something.
I'm writing this as someone who has been very pregnant twice, and who has received some lovely pregnancy gifts and some baffling ones. Here are eight things I'd have used until they wore out.
Top of the list, and I'll be honest about why. Pregnancy comes with a heightened sense of smell that no one warns you about properly — perfume becomes unbearable, the fridge becomes a war zone, and ordinary things like doing the laundry or sitting on a packed train into work suddenly feel impossible. A small tin of grounding, settling scent (lemon, fir needle, ginger or mint) is the kind of thing you keep in your coat pocket and reach for ten times a day. Practical, beautiful, used daily. Our Bump & Breathe balms were built for exactly this.
Pregnancy sleep is broken sleep, and the sofa becomes her new headquarters. A really good blanket — proper weight, washable, not scratchy — is the gift she'll wrap around herself for the rest of the pregnancy and well into the newborn weeks. You don't need to spend a fortune here either: Dusk's weighted blanket is genuinely lovely for the price, and at around £29 it's one of the better-value ones I've come across.
Round-ligament pain, lower back ache, sore shoulders from carrying a bump, restless legs at 2am — magnesium is one of pregnancy's quiet little miracles. Rubbed into calves or shoulders before bed, it eases the cramps that otherwise wake her up at the worst possible hour. It's also the kind of thing she'd never quite get round to buying for herself, which is exactly why it makes such a good gift.
NEOM are a proper luxury brand, and their magnesium body butter trio is something I'd genuinely use myself — not your run-of-the-mill cream. It's £50.99, but goes on sale often, so it's worth keeping an eye on.
Not glamorous. Genuinely brilliant. Swollen ankles are real, and the women who own a good pair of compression socks evangelise about them for a reason — particularly if she's still commuting or has a long-haul flight ahead. You don't need to spend much; a basic pair from Amazon at under £7 does the job perfectly well, and she can throw them in the wash without precious feelings.
For the friend who likes to write, this is one of those pregnancy gift ideas she'll come back to years later. The weeks blur together extraordinarily fast. A space to record kicks, cravings and the silly things she's dreaming about is a quiet little treasure — and a beautifully made linen-bound one feels like a keepsake rather than a workbook.
Scented bath products are often the first thing to go when the nausea kicks in. A genuinely lovely fragrance-free wash, hand soap or shampoo bar shows you've thought about her — not just bought her something pink. Faith in Nature do a fragrance-free shower gel that's gentle, affordable, and the kind of thing she'll keep using long after the baby arrives.
Pregnancy hydration is its own job. The bottles with little "drink by 11am" markers up the side sound gimmicky and are, in fact, life-changing. They reduce headaches, swelling, and the 4pm slump — and take the mental load off having to remember whether you've had two glasses today or six.
♥ Motivational Time-Marked Water Bottle — $6.63
Cheap, cheerful, and weirdly motivating.
Not technically a gift, but worth saying. The friends I remember most fondly from my pregnancies weren't the ones with the prettiest packages — they were the ones who dropped a curry on the doorstep and rang to ask how I was, not how the baby was. Be that friend.