LETTER: Touching base at mother's breast

From Ms Margaret Gardiner

Sir: I have quite often seen, in Africa, a small child run up to its mother, who had been suckling a baby, to have a swig. Not a meal - just a kind of affirmation of their relationship and also, surely, for the child, a reassurance that it had not been superceded by its newcomer sibling. And this seemed to me a very happy and natural thing but not an invitation that a child ought to be breast fed for its first five or six years (Health, 25 March).

Yours sincerely,

MARGARET GARDINER

London, NW3