Wonderful to read about the world-beating Dutch maternity system (A home help for eight days after giving birth? Why Dutch maternity care is the envy of the world, 25 October). However, when I had my first child by caesarean in 1976, I was supported at home by the midwife and, then, the health visitor. Do we need a new system, or a return to the system that worked before the NHS became fragmented?
Sue Beaumont
Bedford
• In an otherwise excellent long read (‘They treated me like an animal’: how Filipino domestic workers become trapped, 26 October), you describe care work as “unskilled”. How convenient for people doing overpaid jobs – like the financiers in the article who get Filipina women to look after their children – to believe that carers are unskilled. If they can believe that lie, then they can avoid feeling guilty about exploiting them.
Rowan Adams
Dilwyn, Herefordshire
• If roosters can recognise their own reflections (Report, 25 October), will they also experience the point when they look in the mirror one morning and see their dad looking back at them? The joys of getting old.
Barry Norman
Drighlington, Leeds
• The comment “you can’t get your hair cut on the internet” (Letters, 26 October) reminded me of my late father. When asked how he wanted his hair cut, he would respond: “In silence.”
Geraldine Blake
Worthing
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