I ENJOYED Margaret Lawson's letter (March 23) and laughed out loud at the point where Dr Spock ended up "in the bin".

During my first pregnancy 17 years ago, I read with mounting indignation a book entitled Pregnancy by Gordon Bourne, who repeatedly expressed his dislike of the pregnant form!

Upon reading that a pregnant 'girth' (human or horse?) should never exceed 100cm, I measured my own rapidly expanding 'girth' and found that it exceeded the magic figure even at only seven months!

I duly took the offending volume out into the garden and set fire to it, watching the flames with glee, and went on to have the first of two extremely healthy children (bottle-fed, as well), in each case regaining my pre-pregnancy weight after only three months.

Fiona Petrou,

Main Street, Heslington, York.

Updated: 10:47 Tuesday, March 27, 2001