Pregnancy can make you do funny things. One minute you are a perfectly normal human being going about your daily business, and the next you are weeping uncontrollably while watching Only Fools And Horses and eating coal and red cabbage ice-cream by the bucket load.

But having a baby is not just a physical process. OK, so your ankles swell to elephantine proportions, your stomach becomes as tight as a drum and your boobs, well, let's just say your cups runneth over and leave it at that, but these are mere inconveniences when compared to the havoc pregnancy plays with your hormones, turning mild-mannered mums-to-be into the Incredible Bulk and back again within a matter of moments.

This hormonal high jinx goes some way, I think, to explaining why pregnant women who previously thought healthy eating was having lettuce with their kebab suddenly metamorphose into a bizarre mix of Mother Earth and Moses overnight.

Thou shall breastfeed until thy nipples become prune-like shadows of their former selves, they preach; thou shall not give in to the temptation of the dummy; thou shall always grow, cook and puree thine own organic fruit and veggies and never, NEVER sup with the devil and his baby food in a jar; and thou shall not covet thy neighbours' Pampers.

This last commandment is a particular favourite of mine and never fails to raise a smile when mentioned in the company of others mums because unfortunately, like new men and New Labour, the novelty soon wears off when it comes to reusable nappies.

In the early stages of pregnancy when your baby is about the size of a peanut, eschewing disposables in favour of the more environmentally-friendly alternative seems like the obvious choice. But then you give birth and reality bites.

There is no polite way to say this I'm afraid, so here goes: babies are poo machines. You put bland milk in one end and gunge from the gates of hell erupts from the other.

Believe me, you don't want to get too close to this stuff and you certainly don't want it hanging round the house like, well like a bad smell, so what do you do? Unfortunately the easiest solution is to bung the offending item in a bag and drop kick it into the nearest dustbin.

I say unfortunately because this happens to be Real Nappy Week when we are supposed to be dumping our disposables and rushing out to buy reusables instead.

Ken Moody, head of waste management at North Yorkshire County Council, has been given the unenviable task of trying to encourage us mums to mend our ways. Do your bit for the environment and save money as well, he told us via the pages of the Press, adding that modern reusable nappies are cheap, convenient and easy to use.

All very reasonable arguments and succinctly put, but in my opinion reusable nappies still have one fatal flaw - they are not self-cleaning. This might seem a bit of a feeble excuse for lumbering the planet with mountains of undisposable disposables but, as the mum of a particularly productive poo machine, I just can't face the thought of spending my time bowing and scraping when I can bag it and bin it instead.

Sorry Ken, it can't be much fun being put on poo patrol by the powers-that-be and, if mine is a typical response, it looks like you're not going to have a particularly happy nappy week.