No research known to me has studied the perspectives and reactions of birth mothers who had been sought by their sons or daughters or who had themselves sought their sons or daughters. We are currently carrying out such a study with my research colleagues Feast, J. and Kyle, F at the Children's Society. Our research is much wider than the issues debated here, but because of the urgency of the matter we outline below some provisional findings from answers to relevant questions. For obvious reasons we concentrate here on mothers who were sought out. Birth Mothers Who Were Sought Out by Their Sons or Daughters An analysis of the first 50 or so of those birth mothers who were sought out shows the following:

Table 1: Were you aware that the law changed in 1975 giving adopted people the right for information from their birth records?

Frequency— per cent

Yes aware—62

No—31

Not sure—6

Total—99

Table 2: If you were aware how did you feel about this?

Frequency— per cent

Pleased—50

Worried—20

Not sure—23

Angry—3

Indifferent—3

Total—99

Table 3: What was your initial reaction when you heard that your birth son/daughter wanted to have contact with you?

Frequency— per cent

Pleased—50

excited, happy—55

surprised—20

nervous, worried—13

frightened— 2

uncertain—2

other—6

Total—98

Table 4: Do you feel the contact experience has been a positive one for you?

Frequency— per cent

Very positive—67

Positive—27

Not sure—6

Total—100

Acknowledgements to Julia Feat and Fiona Kyle for the following information.

Table 5: Looking back, how pleased are you that your son/daughter sought you out?

Frequency— per cent

Very pleased—80

Pleased—14

mixed—6

Total—100