Sir, – I returned to Ireland in the 1960s from Africa where breastfeeding was the norm. I actually merited a visit from the matron in the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, congratulating me on breastfeeding, a rare practice then. Attitudes to my breastfeeding from men – family and friends – were positive, even encouraging. The reactions of many women, however, bordered on repugnance. But this was a generation of women educated by celibates in secondary schools, where the emphasis was on modesty, chastity and the concealment of the body. The subsequent laicisation of post-primary education was a factor in changing attitudes to how we fed our babies. – Yours, etc,
JOAN HANNON,
Cootehill,
Co Cavan.