As part of the publicity surrounding the publication of her autobiography, the intrepid BBC war correspondent, Kate Adie, has spoken about her family. She always knew she'd been adopted at birth, and enjoyed the happiest of childhoods with Maud and Wilfrid, her adoptive parents.

After Maud's death, she went looking for her natural mother, found her, and acquired an instant family of siblings, nephews and nieces. The entire family is as delighted with her as she is with them.

Hers is one of the happier adoption stories. Alas, not all have such a satisfactory outcome. Today it is no big deal for an unmarried woman to have a baby, nor should it be. Even the absence of a father barely rates a raised eyebrow.

We sometimes forget that as little as 40 years ago, the stigma of illegitimacy was so hard for families to contend with, that many a young mother was compelled to give her baby away for adoption within just of few days of its birth. The wrenching heartache and emotional turmoil suffered by many of these mothers at having to part with their child is unimaginable.

Even if they later married, had other children and a happy family life, the memory of the parting with the baby they gave away never leaves them completely. Now, even the most secure and balanced adopted child will probably, at some stage of growing up, experience an instinctive longing to find his or her natural mother.

Similarly, many mothers who gave up their baby for adoption yearn to know what happened to the son or daughter they have never known. The right of adoptive children to find out about their natural mother has become widely recognised over the past couple of decades, and the process has been made easier for them.

Not so when it is the natural mother (or father, though this is less often the case), who wants to find out what happened to her offspring. This week, the Government has announced measures to enable these mothers to make contact with their child, via an intermediate service.

A spokeswoman for the British Agency for Adoption and Fostering hailed this as "an important step forward'' but warned of the need to know how much it may cost people to contact their children.

An intermediary seems to me a vital element in all this: Not all the children concerned will want to be "found", and no-one should blame them if they are understandably wary of risking the unavoidable emotional turmoil involved.

For the cost in emotional terms is far more important, and a good deal less predictable, than financial considerations.

Some mothers may be happily reassured to find that their child is healthy, happy, and settled with a family of his/her own. Others may be less fortunate, and may later regret embarking on a search likely to end in tears and yet more heartache.

Natural mothers have rights in all this, and should be helped to further them. But those who have to adjust to possible rejection or the discovery that their child's story does not have a happy ending, will need the kind of sensitive and understanding support which is impossible to measure in financial terms.