Beck Vass: A baby is the least of Jacinda Ardern's worries

This isn't for Jacinda. I suspect she already knows everything I have to say. She's already had to rise above it in her job.

She knows exactly what she's in for. And she's probably tough enough not to care about most of it, most of the time.

But, as if watching a car crash in slow motion, I did it. I looked at the comments on social media following this morning's announcement that she is pregnant, due in June.

One man comments that she should resign because she can't give a baby the care it needs when she's back at work after six weeks because she can't feed it.

A woman replies: "Haven't you heard of pumping?"

Er, or formula. But, you know, mums get judged for that too: it causes allergies, asthma and is pretty much killing kids.

As all us mums know, these are just some of the judgements made on most mothers, most days. The Prime Minister being pregnant only brings it to light.

Most gutting is that the worst offenders are often other mothers.

Somehow, in 2018, especially when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth, there is something about women's bodies that people believe is public property.

As the recent Harvey Weinstein scandal, the #metoo and later #glitterboobs movements have revealed, women are really only just starting the fight to claim our bodies back.

Some of the comments around these issues, and those now surrounding news of our PM's precious little growing baby, tell us we still have a long way to go.

But we'll never win if we're to let other people's opinions matter:

If we go back to work, we're not being enough of a mum. If we don't work we're letting our career go and not contributing to the household financially.

If we let the babies cry we're abandoning them, setting them up for a lifetime of anxiety and depression because they didn't know the world was safe.

But should we cuddle them every time they cry, we're making them sooks.

Let them eat the wrong things and they'll grow up dependent on sugar, predisposed to a lifetime of obesity and diabetes.

Sugar in pregnancy will cause diabetes and the baby will come out demanding giant gelatos on waffle cones as its main food source forever.

If you have a C-section – fail. A natural birth – hippy!

We vaccinate and we're poisoning them. We don't vaccinate and we're risking their and everyone else's lives.

Don't even look up the examples of pregnant women who chose to have a glass of wine.

Oh, and she's not married! Isn't it amazing she was allowed out of the kitchen anyway!

It's endless for women. Sadly, the judgement and the pressure doesn't seem to pass to the men in quite the same way. Although I'm sure to-be at-home-dad Clarke will cop some too.

Every one of us, somehow, just needs to remember how very true the old adage is: Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.