Pregnant women are advised to be cautious of many things: sushi, Brie, hot tubs and kitty litter, to name a few. But when I was expecting my first child, I was surprised to receive a concerned phone call warning me about the dangers of an eclipse.

Don’t use a pair of scissors or a knife during an eclipse, my mother said, or the baby could be born with facial birth defects.

Unlike the risks posed by uncooked fish or soft cheese, there is no scientific or medical basis for this sort of alarm. But there are persistent superstitions and myths surrounding celestial events, especially ones as dramatic as the solar eclipse that will cut across the entire continental United States on Aug. 21. Those of us in the center of the moon’s shadow, known as the totality, will see the sky darken for a few minutes in the middle of the day.

In many cultures, including my parents’ South Asian background, pregnant women are told to stay indoors during an eclipse to prevent birth defects. The parenting advice website BabyCenter.com, in a section on traditional Hispanic beliefs and myths about pregnancy, also notes that expectant mothers are told to carry something metallic, such as a safety pin, during an eclipse to protect against cleft palate.

The site suggests the superstition traces back to an Aztec belief that an eclipse is a bite on the face of the moon.

David Baron, author of “American Eclipse,” says that there was a time in the 1970s that the Indonesian government advised pregnant women to stay indoors during a solar eclipse. (That’s no longer the case.)

“There’s nothing to fear but epic traffic,” he said, referring to the cars expected to crowd highways to get a good view when the solar eclipse passes over an area.

The editorial team of BabyCenter India posted a list of common traditional restrictions and beliefs on the topic. During an eclipse, the list said, a pregnant woman should:

-- avoid using any sharp object such as a knife, scissors or a needle.

-- avoid eating anything.

-- rest as much as possible.

-- cover the windows with newspaper or thick curtains so that no rays of the eclipse enter the home.

-- throw away all food that was cooked before the eclipse and take a bath after it ends.

The article points out that there is no scientific evidence to suggest an eclipse is harmful to a pregnant woman or her baby, but that none of the recommendations would be harmful to follow if the woman chooses -- except for fasting, potentially. Fasting during an eclipse is a common practice in parts of India, and could lead to dehydration if it lasts too long.

Dr. Shafia Bhutto, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Mercy Hospital in St. Louis, says expectant women in Pakistan might be told to lie straight in bed during an eclipse to prevent crooked joints in a baby.

“There’s nothing real about that,” she said. Her only medical advice applies to everyone: Don’t look at the sun directly because it can damage your retina. Everyone must wear special protective glasses when looking at an eclipse to prevent eye damage.

“There is nothing that will happen to your unborn baby during an eclipse, because they are in your uterus,” she said.

But superstitions are hard to shake. Bhutto remembers a woman from many years ago who was distraught throughout her pregnancy because she’d accidentally looked at a lunar eclipse. She worried about it constantly. Ultimately, the woman’s baby was born with a cleft palate that had never been picked up in the ultrasounds.

“Even though it was completely unrelated, the patient totally blamed herself,” she said.

Franz Davis could tell he had been out of the dating pool for years when he ventured back in after getting divorced.

“I honestly felt like I was on a different planet,” he said. “I hadn’t been on the dating scene since college.”

Davis, a divorce attorney in Minneapolis, had been married for eight years. He was a decade removed from the singles scene.

“People knew how to quickly meet then just hook up,” he said. Davis tried to work the bar and restaurant scene and found himself getting frustrated with the superficiality of it.

He ended up stepping away to work on himself. Instead of going out, he went to counseling and read books to figure out why his marriage had failed and how to avoid falling back into the same relationship patterns.

“Believe it or not, I really worked on it,” he said. He finally got to a point where he was happy being single, excited to go on solo bike rides and meet with friends at a restaurant. Of course, this was exactly when he met his future wife -- ironically enough, a matchmaker.

April Davis, president of LUMA Luxury Matchmaking, says the majority of her clients are divorced. They come to her with a mixed bag of experiences. Some refuse to try online dating, while others have been on a hundred app-instigated dates. Some have been hurt so badly that they cannot let a new person get too close emotionally. Others are so afraid of being alone, they are willing to settle for the next person who comes along.

Her advice starts from the same place: Figure out who you are as a single person. Find out which character traits and values are most important to you in a partner, and work on developing those same qualities in yourself.

“Like attracts like,” she said. Typically, a person’s confidence has taken a hit after a divorce, and he or she is unsure of how to navigate the modern dating scene, she said.

April says her general rule of thumb for the newly divorced is to take a month being single for every year of marriage before jumping into another relationship. Use that time as a chance to grow and learn, she said.

That’s the path Rachael Carter, 44, has embraced. Carter, an outgoing photographer in Lake St. Louis, also models and acts occasionally. What she doesn’t do much is date. She’s been divorced nearly two years after 12 years of marriage. She’s been on two dates.

“My focus is on making sure I’m raising a healthy, well-adjusted child,” she said. She doesn’t want the aftermath of the divorce to disrupt her teenage daughter’s life. Plus, she’s much more aware now of what she wants in a partner. She has no desire to use a dating app or site.

“After going through what I’ve been through, I think I’m looking for a deeper connection,” Carter said. Since her divorce, she also became very introspective. “I had to think about things I was passionate about that would bring joy back into my life.”

And now she’s OK being alone and focusing on building her career.

“I’m OK with me, and I’m OK being alone,” she said. “When you look for love, sometimes you look for the wrong things.”

Carly Spindel, who works as a matchmaker along with her mother at their company, Janis Spindel Serious Matchmaking in New York City, says custody situations can make dating even more difficult post-divorce.

“It gets more and more complicated,” she said, when each person has a strict custody schedule.

For Franz Davis, he was more cautious the second time around. But when he noticed his feelings progressing for April, he was direct.

“Are we developing something?” he asked her.

“No, I just want to be friends,” she said.

“I have enough friends,” he responded.

They ended up dating for four years and tied the knot in 2013.

“It’s your first day as an American, and you’ve already gone viral,” I told my husband.

My spouse, who has little use for social media and has never tweeted, looked at me like I was crazy. I had tweeted a photo of the welcome letter he’d received that morning at his naturalization ceremony in St. Louis. Labeled “a message from the President of the United States,” it was a beautifully written, undated form letter given to new American citizens.

It was signed by Barack Obama.

“My British-born husband takes his oath of citizenship today,” my tweet said. “In the packet for new Americans, the welcome letter from POTUS is from Obama.”

He’d done a double-take when he noticed the signature, wondering if he’d misread it. Then he Googled Obama’s signature to compare, and sure enough, it was from 44 -- not 45.

We laughed about it, and apparently the internet found it pretty funny, too.

By the end of the weekend, the tweet had been liked more than 175,000 times. Several sites posted “stories” about the snafu, simply reprinting my tweet and some of the rather hilarious reactions to it. The Hill asked the White House for comment, but had not received a response.

George Takei posted one such story on his Facebook page, noting that it was “probably better this way” -- as opposed to what such a letter from this new administration might say, I suppose.

I was contacted by Buzzfeed and Mashable, who wanted more details: Was it an oversight by the current administration? A petty retaliation by an office worker? A typical delay in turnover from one administration to the next?

The packet and letters are distributed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. In a statement sent to The Hill, USCIS Press Secretary Maria Elena Upson said that around 200 Obama-signed letters were sent out due to an administrative error.

The unforced error sparked lots of theories and wishful thinking by those who feel alienated by the current administration. Of course, it also prompted some ugly messages from trolls who said my husband should be “deported.”

For the past 17 years, I’ve asked my husband to give up his British citizenship and become an American.

After all, he’s lived here nearly his entire life, arriving when he was just 6 weeks old. Both his parents, now deceased, were Americans. He and two siblings were born in the U.K. while his father, a physician, completed medical training there.

His mother was an American by birth whose family roots in the Midwest went back many generations. His father was a naturalized citizen. All his siblings eventually filed the paperwork to become American citizens, but he was a holdout. Despite marrying a native-born American and having our children here, he held on to the notion that it might come in handy one day to have a U.K. passport.

He had been a permanent legal resident in America his entire life, and the only things he couldn’t do were vote and serve on a jury. For all intents and purposes, he felt like an American, and that was good enough for him.

It wasn’t enough for me.

In this political era, I wanted him to have all the rights and protections conferred upon citizens. So, after years of debate, he finally agreed.

It was a beautiful ceremony, complete with courthouse singers who sang one of the loveliest renditions of “America the Beautiful” we’ve ever heard. Then, like I always do, I teared up during the national anthem. It was more than just that swell of emotion that comes whenever I think about the ideals this country was founded on. It was witnessing this room full of hopeful new Americans, many of whom risked a great deal to come here and share in our vision of what we can be together.

I was so proud to see my husband, who has quietly given so much to this country, finally become a citizen.

His considerable professional contributions are outweighed by projects like the one he undertook a year and a half ago, when he spent his weekends rehabbing an old house his family owned. He fixed it up so that a newly arrived refugee family could have a place to make a fresh start. He’s always finding small, and large, ways to give back without ever seeking credit or anything in return.

He may have just recently made his citizenship official, but he’s long been an example to me of what makes America great.

The first thing he did as an American was register to vote.