Breastfeeding - Breastfeeding and Cancer

Breastfeeding greatly reduces the chances that a woman will have breast, uterine, or cervical cancer.

• If you have lactated for two years total, you are 50% less likely to have pre-menopausal breast cancer.
• Breastfeeding also reduces your chance of getting cancer of the ovaries or cervix, and post-menopausal breast cancer.
• The longer you breastfeed, the more you reduce your chances of getting cancer.
• Remember: breast cancer is a leading cause of death for women. This alone should make you seriously consider breastfeeding your baby.
• Remember: extended breastfeeding is best for your baby and for you!
• Related stuff:
  • Breastfeeding offers many health benefits to your child, including reducing the chances that your child will get cancer.
  • If you have already had breast cancer and had to have a mastectomy (or had breast surgery for any other reason), you might still be able to breastfeed.
• How does breastfeeding help prevent cancer?
  • Part of the effect must be due to hormones. Your body has highly altered hormone levels during pregnancy and lactation. Presumably, hormones are also responsible for the fact that breastfeeding mothers often experience a relief from symptoms of asthma, diabetes, arthritis and some other chronic diseases.
  • However, part of the effect seems to be more direct (I have no idea how it works): research has shown that in cultures where women only nurse their babies from one breast (because of their traditional clothing style, which allows easy access to one breast but not the other) they are much more likely to develop cancer in the unused breast.
• Breastfeed! It will make your baby happier and healthier, and it may very well save your life!

Back to:

• Benefits of breastfeeding for the mother
• Why to breastfeed

Back to the breastfeeding main page

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