I'VE NEVER been in a Mothercare store in my life. Among other things, I never cared for its logo: the child with a football for a head. But the main reason I'd never been in Mothercare is that I simply had no reason to.

Last week, I found myself in a huge Mothercare in Dundee, looking at prams and cots with my wife, my mother and my grandmother. You see in two months' time, we'll be having our first baby. So things have become decidedly child-centred.

Until today, we were under the impression babies - aside from needing lots of love and plenty of breast milk - are relatively free from material needs, merely requiring a cot, nappies and cosy clothes, and a pram (and car seat) for travelling in - things that can be obtained with minimum fuss and expense. But judging by the bulging trolleys of all the other expectant mothers in Mothercare, we were wrong.

Among many other things, it seems we'll need a Baby Einstein DVD, a sensory swing, and perhaps even an English oak three-tier nappy changer.

I was beginning to feel that having a baby is a good excuse for some people to do a lot of extra shopping. After all, a brand new person owns nothing and knows nothing of the wonder of shops or spending. What better way to start a child on the life-long road of consumerism than by buying it lots of stuff? "Make sure their new home is as safe and comfy as the last one," it said above me in bold letters. I'm pretty sure no baby's last home was saturated with pastel pinks and light blues, and teddy bears peering sweetly from almost everything in sight.

This makes me think about the Romanian philosopher and pessimist EM Cioran and his book The Trouble With Being Born. It has become something of a miserablist classic, and although the tone is thoroughly negative and relentless (or perhaps because of that), it ends up unintentionally becoming a comedy. Phrases such as "only one thing matters: learning to be the loser" or "every friendship is a series of subtle wounds" make the reader think the writer is not being serious.

This leads me to consider what he might have come up with if he worked as the chief bib sloganeer for Mothercare; not "I love my daddy" or "handle with care", that's for sure. Who knows, maybe he'd have surprised himself. But I conclude EM Cioran would not have enjoyed an afternoon in Mothercare.

I've been working my way through a fair share of pregnancy literature. Between Charles Fernyhough's excellent study of developmental psychology, The Baby In The Mirror, and midwife extraordinaire Ina May Gaskin's memoirs, I've learned more about breech deliveries, active birth positions and toddlers' brain patterns than I ever thought I would.

My favourite, though, is Childbirth Without Fear, written by the unfortunately named Grantly Dick-Read (and dedicated to his even more unfortunately named wife Jessica Dick-Read Bennet). First published in 1944, it contains great, unlikely descriptions such as: "During labour a woman can spot a doubt in the doctor's mind as quickly as a falcon sees a rat in the stubble."

He also repeatedly refers to himself as a "109 pound athlete". I'm not sure whose benefit this is for. Grantly holds the belief the more cultured the races of the Earth have become, the more positive they've been in pronouncing childbirth as a painful and dangerous ordeal. It certainly goes some way to explaining why television programmes and films nowadays usually depict it as a gruesome and traumatic experience rather than a relatively calm and natural one.

Regardless, I'm assured all my newly gained knowledge and opinion will be well and truly forgotten the minute the little baby arrives. The only way to learn about an experience is by actually having one, Mothercare or not. And I wouldn't want it any other way.