In answer to Mr Barnes ('Bacon babies', Letters, June 15), I was born in 1972.

For the first six months of their life, babies need only breast milk and then it is common practice for them to be fed on baby food before moving on to solids at about nine months to a year old.

However, from the time of the industrial revolution, it was common for babies to be fed meat when mothers were working in factories and others looked after their children.

This continued until the 1960s when studies of babies discovered their digestive systems were not mature enough, and their ability to swallow not developed enough to move on to solids so early.

The babies in the south London hospital may have been all right but who knows whether or not feeding meat to underdeveloped stomachs could have contributed to increases in cases of bowel cancer or colitis?

Adam Rosser,

Raskelf Road, Easingwold.

Updated: 09:39 Thursday, June 23, 2005