Doctors have been told to refer to expectant mothers as “pregnant people” so as not to offend transgender people, in official guidelines issued by the British Medical Association (BMA).

The controversial advice appears in a 14-page booklet on “inclusive language in the workplace” which also rules that the terms ‘biologically male’ and ‘biologically female’ are problematic, and instructs doctors to instead say that the individual was ‘assigned’ male or female at birth.

The union’s new guidelines come just weeks after it emerged that a British woman in the process of ‘transitioning’ gender put her operation on hold to have a baby, the Mail on Sunday reports.