Is it rude to ask a pregnant women when she's due

jgranger221

If it's a co-worker, I'll typically ask another female if so and so is pregnant. I assume that a woman would share the news with other women before they would share with a man. Is that sexist? Perhaps. Is it true? Absolutely.

I'm not asking because I'm being nosey- I'm asking because I want to share in the woman's joy. I work in a high school, so there are a lot of people working there. Just because the mother-to-be hasn't told me personally, doesn't mean she is keeping it from me. There are just too many people in my workplace to share with individually. Plus, having such a large workplace, there is typically a shower given for the new mother, and depending on how well I know her, I often contribute to a gift despite not being invited to said shower :-)

Once I know that she is indeed pregnant, I can use my all-purpose ice breaker "So, how many are you having?" My wife and I have twins, so that usually gets a chuckle, and in more than one case, the mother was indeed expecting twins, and she now knows that she has a resource to go to with questions on real-world issues that only parents of twins would know. Plus, we had two of everything and I was able to offload some surplus items on these women. (Free crib mattress, anyone?)

earlnabby

No matter how well you know the person, once you know for sure that she is pregnant DO NOT touch the belly!!!!!

I agree that it is rude to ask if someone is pregnant. Let them bring it up.

Flab2Fab27

Never EVER ask if they are pregnant. It's up to them to tell you.

If they're not pregnant, you've just called them fat and hurt their feelings terribly. It's not worth it. (And yep, this has happened to me in the past.)

Agree 100% and also had this happen to me about 20lbs ago. I never say anything until the person in question mentions it themselves or unless it's widely known that they are pregnant.

You may feel like an idiot asking somebody about their pregnancy when they're just fat but they'll probably feel even worse.

Miss_1999

Unless you know and or see someone wearing something like this:



It's a no go. And if they are wearing a shirt that has Baby with an arrow pointed down to their belly and they AREN'T pregnant, then sorry, they deserve to get offended. Women who are dressed in regular clothing who are mistaken for being pregnant, not cool. Not cool at all.