Part 3
The Utopia of Greed
'The recaptured sense of her own childhood kept coming back to her whenever she met the two sons of the young woman who owned the bakery shop. She often saw them wandering down the trails of the valley - two fearless beings, aged seven and four.'
..."They represent my particular career Miss Taggart...
...You know of course that there can be no collective commitments in this valley and that families or relatives are not allowed to come here, unless each person takes the strikers oath by his own independent conviction... ...I came here to bring up my sons as human beings."
Seven and four, well within the timeline of the valley. Running her bakery was not the only thing she was doing.
As a contrast to the Bakers story, the testimony of the tramp to Dagny -
"...Now, if a baby was born we didn't speak to the parents for weeks. Babies, to us, had become what locusts are to farmers."
Since the Starnes choice was the antithesis of the Gulchers I think that children were indeed welcome in the valley. Those who had been corrupted through exposure to the outside world would have had to wait until they were able to make the choice on their own. Naturally occurring births and deaths along with disability are rare in Atlas Shrugged, possibly in an attempt to keep the novel at a reasonable length :-)
BTTT