Breast is best
Sir: I too applaud John Linklater's article on The Decline and Fall of the Breast (September 8).
I feel privileged to have been the eldest of eight children all of whom were breast fed for nine months by a mother who inspite of very little help in the house and a considerable financial struggle bringing us up never once thought to compromise by saying to an elder child, " Here. Give the baby its bottle!" To her it was a pleasure that became a ritual as well as a practical solution to sit down for twenty minutes and relax — probably the only time she sat down. As each feed came round arguments and discussions would cease, silence would descend on the house and she would take that marvellous position in a chair that no one else would think of sitting in, unbutton her front and give her breast all pearly and full to a red faced hungry baby. We would all watch quietly tranquillised by the act. Sometimes to amuse us she would take her nipple away from the hungry baby and we would watch the baby's reactions. It would open its eyes, push around, sniffing for her, get very angry, start to open its mouth to yell when she would quickly give back the longed-for breast and the baby would give several little sighs and the lovely rhythmic sucking noise would start up again. Once with one baby — alas, brothers and sisters, I can't remember which one of you — when she did this and finally the baby was back sucking and peaceful and we were all laughing and enjoying the scene, the baby turned from the breast and laughed too!
The best story is about my brother Simon who was the fifth. He was watching my mother feed Benjamin the seventh and said to her, " Have you fed us all like that?" My mother replied that she had. There was a long pause before he replied: " Gosh, They've worn well!"
This reminds me of her advice to her daughters and it worked for me as it did fbr her. In the early stages of pregnancy as the breasts are beginning to change shape if a girl gently rubs good old olive oil into her breasts morning and night as well as wear a good bra round the clock she will keep her figure. My mother still astounds people who do not know her when she walks into a room and they eventually find out she is the mother of eight.
I will never forget bringing_ my daughter, Rose, home from the hospital weeping because the baby would not suck from breasts that were supplying enough for the whole nursery. My mother said: "Do you mind?
Give me that child." My father mildly frowning behind spectacles watched as
mother opened her blouse and my baby latched on to her immediately. 140 one had emphasised how a small nippled mother should work with clean fingers two months before the baby is due in pulling the nipple and making it into a good size and shape. It took Persistence and a marvellous ward sister who let my second nearly starve before he latched on to me. But that feeling I had been cheated with my first was next to the worse kind of ,failure after watching my mother's glorious past! My second baby was Promptly labelled by a good Dutch artist visiting our house for the way that the baby had to work to hang on to me as 'Mr Snitch
Readers, don't deny your babies! Here's one where the umbilical cord Still pulls and who enjoys lovely Memories of the security and fun of those nursery days — certainly more than anything the dollar has had to offer!
Charlotte Halley
22 Sixteenth Street, Atlanta, Georgia.
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