First it was a stud through the tongue, and now it's a bun in the oven. Reports of the impending arrival of the latest accessories designed to spice up the lives of three reigning princesses of pop have been greeted with some dismay. Body-piercing can be reversed, Spice fans are being cautioned, but babies are for life.

Apparently unmoved by concerns that their maternity plans could result in a spate of copycat pregnancies among fans of the Spice Girls, Posh Spice and Scary Spice, a.k.a. Victoria Adams (24) and Melanie Brown (23), are said to be delighted with the prospect of two becoming four.

Meanwhile, fellow mother-to-be Melanie Blatt of girl band All Saints has been scolded for deliberately flaunting her bulging belly on magazine covers and at celebrity parties. Like popstar Neneh Cherry who poured her eight-months-pregnant frame into a black Lycra dress to strut her stuff on Top of the Pops during the 1980s, she has continued to perform with her band on stage this summer.

All three women are in long-term relationships with the fathers of their unborn children. Adams is engaged to Manchester United and England soccer player David Beckham, Brown plans to marry dancer Jimmy Gulzar and Blatt is seen regularly with Jamiroquai bass player by her side. But because their pregnancies have come before their nuptials they are doomed, for a short time at least, to be known in tabloid speak as "single mums".

As such, they are being accused of sending out the wrong message to their young, impressionable female fans. As one commentator put it this week, there are 14-year-olds "tottering about on Spice platforms who might think babies go with the shoes".

The reaction of John Whyte, spokesman for the National Parents Council, is typical of those who feel that by being seen to be happy about their pregnancies these single girls are sending out worrying signals.

"There has been so much talk about it that it looks as though it is acceptable, when it should have been seen more as a tragedy than an achievement," he said.

His fears are founded in the fact that last year 2,700 babies were born outside marriage to teenage mothers in the State. Fifty-six of those were to girls below the age of consent, a result, some maintain, of the ever diminishing influence of religion on the moral fabric of contemporary Ireland.

While it's perfectly fine, reasoned Whyte, for Posh, Scary and Melanie - blessed as they are with money, good careers and seemingly secure relationships - to become pregnant, the reality for the average young single mother is much harsher.

"There are so many tragedies where intelligent girls with bright futures end up pushing prams around their towns," he says. "There is a danger that fans of the Spice Girls could feel, `If it is OK for them it is OK for me'."

He said it was a good time to call for the introduction of the relationship and sexuality programme in the timetable of every school in the State. The programme is seen by the Department of Education as important in the effort to reduce the number of young girls giving birth.

Opinion columnist with the Irish edition of the Mirror, Ita O'Kelly-Browne, is also upset with the Spice Girls. This week she wrote that their recent announcement was "a serious blow for all parents of Spice Girls fans".

FOR them to put motherhood on a par with choosing another pair of Gucci clam-diggers and matching mules was getting into very scary territory, she wrote. Warming to her theme O'Kelly-Browne told The Irish Times that Melanie Blatt was promoting pregnancy as a look "by wearing crop tops".

"It glamourises having a baby, it enforces the message that having a baby is ultra-hip. It is different from have a baby outside marriage when you are rich. It is a huge obligation for young women, and to promote it as an aspiration is not desirable," she said.

At the home of the British pop music bible, Smash Hits, its London features editor, Kirstin Watson, has been fielding hundreds of what she describes as "moral outrage" phone calls related to the Spice pregnancies all week. She doesn't believe, however, that the concerns are justified.

"They are three incredibly successful young women all involved in long-term loving relationships, all planning to get married," she says. "Even if they don't, they will not be the only single mums in the world. It is not such a shock these days; we are living in a changing society. If Scary Spice was just ordinary Melanie Brown from Leeds nobody would care less whether she got pregnant," she said. As far as the fans are concerned, she predicts they will be excited by what are being sold as new additions to the family Spice.

The reaction of their record company is another matter. Navigators of Spaceship Spice are said to be livid about the development, while it was reported that other band members are giving Melanie Blatt the cold shoulder because of her pregnancy.

Boyzone manager Louis Walsh believes that all three have made a mistake. "It is not going to help them, it is going to cause problems because they are going to be focused on their babies and not on their careers," he said. It is the beginning of the end of the Spice Girls, he said, and was "very careless planning" on their part. "So much for Girl Power," he added.

Although two members of Boyzone had babies outside marriage, little fuss was made about their becoming fathers at a relatively young age. "But they weren't having the babies," said Walsh. Yvonne Keating, who recently became the wife of Boyzone's Ronan Keating, is already pregnant, while Ireland's current crop of young female popstars Bewitched, The Corrs and Kerri Ann were unreachable this week, and their reaction to the condition of the Spice Girls is not recorded.

Amid all the hand-wringing and fingerwagging, scepticism has also been voiced about the validity of all three women's claims that their pregnancies were not planned. In their smash hit When 2 Become 1 the Spices sing "Are you as good as I remember, baby?" while gently advising the object of their affections to "put it on, put it on". The safe sex message is abundantly clear, but it appears Posh and Scary didn't quite get around to practising what they preached.

Ita O'Kelly-Browne muses that, far from representing the natural progression from girl power to Mother power, their pregnancies could merely be these young go-getting, popstrels reverting back "to that age-old stereotype of using a baby to trap your man".

If Sheryl Gascoigne's divorce from Gazza with whom she has a child are anything to go by, it could take more than a couple of genuine Baby Spices to ensure their celebrity unions last for ever.