UFO Info Week-End

In the meantime when choosing where to have their baby all prospective mothers wishing to breastfeed should ask Is this facility baby friendly?SUE ASHMOREDIRECTOR

In the meantime when choosing where to have their baby all prospective mothers wishing to breastfeed should ask “Is this facility baby friendly?”SUE ASHMOREDIRECTOR UNICEF UK BABY FRIENDLY INITIATIVE, LONDON WC2Sir: I breastfed my two eldest with no trouble at all, but my youngest was a different matter. The remaining maternity units must accelerate their adoption of the programme so that the largely preventable experiences of mothers like Bronwyn Eyre should become a thing of the past. Hospitals accredited as baby friendly invariably see a rise in their breastfeeding rates and the satisfaction expressed by mothers.There are now 43 Baby Friendly Hospitals in the UK, around 14 per cent of the total. UNICEF and the World Health Organisation are addressing this problem through the Baby Friendly Initiative – a global programme which requires maternity services to implement agreed best practice policies for breastfeeding and train their staff in implementation. Unknown to many parents, most midwives, health visitors and doctors have had little or no training in how to support breastfeeding. But don’t blame breastfeeding; instead blame the system which lets so many women down.Poor professional practice has too often resulted in breastfeeding failure, distressed parents and poorer health outcomes for mother and baby.

Have I got that right?PETER TAJASQUELONDON W3 New deal for nursing mothers Sir: Bronwyn Eyre’s account of her breastfeeding experience (25 April) is a sad example of the care many breastfeeding mothers receive in the British maternity services. Presumably, wearing a T-shirt saying “Stop the Genocide in Iraq”, which would, no doubt, be seen as bad taste by Charles Clarke, and therefore not an arrestable offence, would, however, still leave me open to arrest for protesting without police permission in a designated area. I am a supporter of Brian Haw and his protest in Parliament Square. The police have made it clear to me that if I am visiting Brian, or watching over the demo whilst he nips off to the loo, they will not arrest me However, if I am protesting, they might arrest me. We should all join in what must be a major campaign to defend our hard-won liberty. There is no better place to start that by renewing our passports in May, as a demonstration to the Home Secretary that we are not prepared simply to sit back and accept the use of passport applications to harvest our data for this nightmare.ROSS JOHNSONWHICKHAM, TYNE AND WEARSir: Congratulations to Simon Carr for rattling Charles Clarke’s cage over civil liberties (15, 24 April).

We had enough of them with Margaret Thatcher.DR ANDREW MACZEKSHEFFIELD The threat to our civil liberties Sir: I heartily commend Ben Russell for taking the Government to task in such robust fashion over its attack on our civil liberties (“The battle for civil liberties”, 24 April). It is intriguing to consider just what they have got away with and continue to foist upon us simply by playing the terrorism card, and by sensationalising the threat from benefit fraudsters and organised criminals so that in magnified fear we submit to the state in meek fashion.No more clearly is their attitude demonstrated than in their policy on identity cards and the National Identity Register: quite simply the most intrusive and far-reaching meta-database the world has ever seen, which the Home Office will find very difficult to deliver in anything like the form it wants, and which will cost us a bomb without providing any tangible benefit.You are right to raise matters such as these, and I urge you to continue to do so until we all see sense. Bravo! Another al-Qa’ida plot foiled and all of us the safer for it.In attempting to foil the misappropriation of major sums from the Inland Revenue our legislators have made the concept of helping out in family crises a potentially suspicious crime, benefiting terrorists more than family.A sense of scale and proportion is what this administration sadly lacks Lord save us from do-gooders who think they know best. The penal remit of his brief may be shaky, but the fiscal side works exceedingly well!Today, I tried to pay a minor sum (around £100) into an overdue store account for a relative who had suffered a stroke Payment was refused. The reason given was that (since 5 April), payment without prior written permission from my relative fell without the law. It may not be possible for a prisoner to reappear before the same judge or magistrate who levied the sentence, but it would surely be useful for the judiciary to learn what effect the sentence has or has not achieved.Further, the court could ensure that the sentence has been properly served and if the sentence included deportation on its conclusion, then the prisoner could be taken away for immediate deportation.ANTHONY FIELDLONDON WC2Sir: Charles Clarke need have no fears.