It was during a lull in the diving - an event that has many more lulls than dives - that I fell into conversation with a heavily pregnant colleague on the press bench.

Now, the competition had been moving along so slowly that she might not even have been pregnant when she arrived at the Edinburgh venue, but let's leave that possibility to one side. We were talking about tucks and pikes and suchlike, and we agreed that all this birling and twirling would be a bit tricky for anyone with a seven-month bump on board.

The whimsy continued when I suggested that the Royal Commonwealth diving pool, which is kept at an agreeably comfortable temperature, could be pressed into service as the Royal Commonwealth birthing pool as well. To which she added that there would be nothing like hurling yourself off the 10 metre platform and hitting the water at breakneck pace to get the process of labour under way. These are the sort of weighty matters that we ace sportswriters like to focus upon in the heat of major international competitions.

Yet in the particular context of the major international competition that is the Commonwealth Games, I'm not so sure that bringing a new life into the world would be a terribly wise idea. Chances are that a Games official - and there are rather a lot of them about - would simply assume that the bawling newborn was another competitor, scoop the poor infant up and carry it off to the mixed zone for a round of post-event interviews.

Now you might suspect that this is just the weary cynicism of a crusty old hack (and I'm in no position to deny the charge) but between the he-said-she-said shenanigans of Usain Bolt and Gabby Logan and the get-it-up-yiz fist pumps of Tattie Marshall, the other overarching theme of these Games has undoubtedly been the youthful lurch of the whole affair. Frankly, there have been more starry-eyed teenagers in the Dalmarnock athletes' village over the past couple of weeks than you'd find in the queue for a Justin Bieber gig.

I figured this out while talking to Scottish diver Grace Reid the other day. Now Grace is so fresh-faced she is almost carbolic, but at the age of 18 she is virtually a veteran in her event. The youngest member of the Scotland team at Delhi in 2010, she is now competing against girls who are more likely to ask her for help with their homework than assistance with their springboard techniques.

The theme became obvious when the heart-meltingly sweet Shetland 13-year-old Erraid Davies took bronze in the para-sport women's 100m breaststroke event. Granted, she was probably aided by the fact that the Shetland Council is so awash with oil money that they have recently installed an Olympic standard swimming pool in every home on the islands, but it was still an amazing effort. At least we thought so until all the other teenies started turning up.

The most prominent of all has been diver Victoria Vincent, also 13, the youngest member of the England team at the Games. Now Victoria has poise, grace and athleticism, but there's no getting away from the fact that she is also so improbably tiny that you could lose her among the old combs, shampoo bottles and loose change at the bottom of your swimming bag. The same could also be said about Matthew Dixon, her 14-year-old team-mate, a lad who looks like he might still have a long wait before his hormones start to happen.

This is not an entirely new phenomenon. The youngest known Olympic medallist was Greek gymnast Dimitrios Loundras, who took part in the 1896 Athens Games aged 10 and won bronze in the team event. There are reports that a seven-year-old boy was drafted to cox the Dutch pair in the rowing event in Paris in 1900, but these have never been verified. Inge Sorensen of Denmark was just 12 years and 24 days old when she finished third in the 200m breaststroke at the Berlin Games in 1936.

Those, though, were exceptional cases. In more recent times, the kiddies have been arriving in droves. At London 2012, there were 33 Olympians aged 15 and under. I'm not sure what the total figure is for Glasgow 2014, but I do know that Pakistani swimmer Bisma Khan, aged 12, is younger than the youngest competitor in London.

All of which is a tad inconvenient to people in my line of work. Contrary to popular perceptions, there are Press Complaints Commission guidelines which advise that a minor should not be interviewed "unless a custodial parent or similarly responsible adult consents". In the aftermath of a stirring performance, we ace sportswriters generally like to plunge in with incisive questions which focus on the competitor's immediate emotional reaction. It can rather take the steam out of things to have to open with: "Have you seen your mummy?"

And how exactly are you meant to end such an encounter? My parting shot of choice would normally be a gentlemanly handshake, but the instinct with many at these Games has been to tousle their hair and offer them a Liquorice Allsort.

But power to them all. To their bounce and their brilliance, their energy and their enthusiasm. The lesson of these Games is that youth isn't wasted on the young after all.