Best Gifts for Expecting Mums: 5 Thoughtful Picks She'll Use

A Scottish mill with a long weaving history, Johnstons of Elgin makes the real thing: soft, dense cashmere rather than a wool blend dressed up as one. A throw is the rare luxury gift that suits almost anyone. In the last trimester it's what she pulls over her legs for an afternoon nap on the sofa; after the birth it lives on the arm of the chair for night feeds. Crucially, it says 'this is for you' rather than 'this is for the baby', which is exactly what most women want halfway through a pile of babygros. Pick a soft neutral — oatmeal, grey, camel — and it will sit happily in a rented flat or a draughty old house.

The Bbhugme is the pregnancy pillow people recommend to each other, and with reason: rather than a fixed wedge, it is filled with small beads that you push and mould, so it can be a bump support, a knee spacer or a rolled-up back rest in the same night. The long shape can be knotted or tucked to hold it where she wants it. It earns its keep from the middle of pregnancy onwards, when sleeping on your side stops being restful, and it stays useful afterwards as a prop for feeding or sitting up in bed.

Seraphine is a London maternity label, and its nightwear is cut for the stretch from late pregnancy into feeding. Look for a button front or a feeding opening: those are the pieces that do double duty in a hospital bag, when you want something that opens easily, washes well and doesn't make you feel like a patient. Nightwear is a more intimate gift than a blanket, so it suits a partner, a sister or a close friend who knows her taste. Use the brand's size guidance rather than guessing, and keep the receipt.

Not every gift needs to be a grand gesture. Mama Mio's Tummy Rub Butter is one of the best-known pregnancy skincare buys: a rich butter made for rubbing into a growing bump, hips and thighs. It is the sort of thing that gets used daily and quietly runs out, which makes it a genuinely useful top-up rather than another object to find a home for. Add it to a bigger present, send it on its own, or use it as the gift for a colleague you like but don't know intimately. Do check the scent first — early pregnancy can turn a favourite fragrance into a no-go.

Flowers are the obvious gift, often done badly: a huge bouquet that arrives while she's out and wilts on the kitchen table by Wednesday. Bloom & Wild's letterbox flowers are packed flat to come through the door, so there's no delivery slot to arrange and nothing to collect from a depot. That makes them a sensible choice for a colleague, a long-distance friend, or anyone whose due date you daren't guess at. A one-off box is lovely; a short subscription keeps the goodwill going through the newborn weeks, when nobody thinks to buy her anything.