A drink to the health of new mothers, pregnant women and a dying father | Letters

There was more than “a suggestion” that Guinness was good for new mothers in the late 1960s (Letters, August 21). In 1976, when my son was born at University College Hospital in London, all new mothers were offered a small glass of Guinness daily. I told a nurse I couldn’t drink it because I hated the taste, and she said, “Ask your husband to bring a bottle of sherry—that’ll build you up.” And so began a lifelong devotion to the healing properties of a manzanilla with dinner. Or two.
Lilian Adams
Hereford

When my father was dying of cancer in the hospital in 1990, he kept asking the nurses for a Guinness, and they kept refusing. A doctor stepped in and wrote on the notes at the foot of his bed: “This man is dying. If he asks for a Guinness, please give him one.” Sure enough, on the nightstand was a can of Guinness with a prescription label on it that read: “Administer orally, as and when patient requests.”
Pete Lavender
Woodthorpe, Nottingham

My mother, then pregnant with my brother, exhausted and anxious, was prescribed Guinness to “up her iron.” We are eternally grateful that she did not take the prescribed thalidomide with Guinness, because, she said, it made her feel sick when taken with Guinness.
Cat Bracey
Bristol

My doctor recommended a pint of Guinness a day during my first pregnancy in 1980. My frugal Scottish husband brewed me stout and I drank half a pint with lunch and half a pint with my evening meal.
Ros Napier
Birmingham

I was given a bottle of Guinness every night for the 10 days I was in the hospital with baby #1 in 1973. Perhaps the alcohol in my milk was the reason this baby slept so well. She is now a non-drinker.
Sally Smit
Redruth, Cornwall