Chances are, the petite woman hanging onto the pole, barely able to maintain her balance on the swaying No. 7 train, does not have a beer gut.

No, ladies and gentlemen, her protruding stomach inches away from your Kindle or iPhone holds part of the future generation of our great city. She's pregnant! So have some pity in these dog days of summer and give up your seats, you lazy bums.

Let's be real: We are all guilty of ignoring the pregnant woman sometimes. I, too, confess to pretending not to see her out of the corner of my eye. I'm napping. I'm engrossed in 'Gone Girl.' I fought hard for this seat, damn it, and someone else will surely get up, right?

Ah, the plight of the pregnant.

Marion Koshy strategizes. The Kew Gardens resident is seven months pregnant. Her commute is long. We're talking more than an hour long, a bus ride to the E train to the 6 train long.

She has tried leaving home earlier. She's tried different cars. She's tried taking the local instead of the express. Her secret weapon: eye contact.

'I have this thing where I kind of just peer over the paper and I'll look at the person, but it's as if I'm reading and maybe I'll catch their glance and then hope they'll give me their seat,' said the 34-year-old social worker.

It doesn't always work. One day this week, she was standing up reading the paper. The train was crowded. Three men were sitting near her. 'One looked up at me and then looked down again,' she recalled. 'I know he was reading the back of my paper. He didn't say a word.'

Chivalry, apparently, is dead.

'It's kind of like you're a panhandler,' added Ms. Koshy, one of many pregnant woman to make this analogy. 'They pretend like you don't even exist.'

Ms. Koshy was one of those who refused seats when she first started to show. No, she could stand, thank you very much. Now she'll take it where she can get it, which is about 50% of the time.

Come on New Yorkers, we can do better than that!

Men will explain that you never ask or assume a woman is pregnant. This is true: It's a cardinal sin. But there comes a point when there's no question that a woman is pregnant. This is the point where you simply get up, folks. Don't make a show of it, don't embarrass the poor woman, just get up and motion to the seat.

Christopher Diamond says he always gets up for the pregnant and he thinks most everyone does so