Health, Beauty & Fitness: Pregnant pause

I'm seriously indecisive at the best of times. However, my current impasse (while being eight months pregnant and seriously rotund, with a sweet tooth to rival Miss Piggy and swollen trotters to compete with, erm, Miss Piggy) is - cake or foot massage?

But, wait, why choose one or the other, when a visit to Nevo Health on Edinburgh's Montgomery Street can help me combine my two great loves?

On first entering this venue, which consists of an upstairs cafe area, The Black Dutch Cafe Bar, one is presented with cakes galore. You might easily forget why you're here. However, if you can fight your way past the brownies and find your way to the spiral staircase, it will lead you to the basement spa area.

Here, I am directed into one of their softly lit, cosy treatment rooms.

With tons of treatments available, including wedding packages and Botox, you'll be spoiled for choice. My therapist, Susan Mothersole - talk about an apt name - is a reiki master and also practices reflexology and Indian head massage. Her calm professionalism had me at ease immediately.

I'd opted for an hour-long session of maternity reflexology. It's meant to aid pregnant women by regulating wayward hormones (my partner will be very pleased to hear that) and helping the body prepare for labour, although it is not suitable before the end of the first trimester.

After a brief consultation, which involved Susan explaining how the stimulation of reflex points on the feet can promote health and wellbeing, I was ready to hoist my girth into position. As lying flat on your back isn't recommended during pregnancy, this involved being propped with pillows into a comfortably recumbent position.

I've never experienced reflexology and have heard mixed reviews. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that my toes and soles were gently stretched and massaged, as my therapist worked with each foot slowly and methodically. I was also grateful that she regularly checked that my bladder wasn't primed to explode (as is often the case, when you're very pregnant).

All my aches and pains were eased, as my limbs and joints went limp, loose and lazy. So much so, that at one point I shocked myself with a relaxation-induced snort to rival the cake-loving Miss Piggy.

• Nevo Health, 91 Montgomery Street, Edinburgh (0131-556 0432, www.nevohealth.co.uk)

• Maternity reflexology, 40 for 60 minutes

• This article was first published in The Scotsman on March 26, 2011