Breastfeeding for More Than 6 Months May Protect Against Breast Cancer in Nonsmoking Women
A new analysis has found that breastfeeding for more than 6 months may safeguard nonsmoking mothers against breast cancer. However, the same does not seem to hold true for mothers who smoke. Published early online in the Journal of Clinical Nursing, the findings add to the list of benefits of breastfeeding for women and their babies, according to the authors.
Study Details
To look at the relationship between breast cancer and certain aspects of pregnancy and breastfeeding, Emilio González-Jiménez, PhD, of the University of Granada in Spain, and colleagues analyzed the medical records of 504 female patients aged 19 to 91 years who had been diagnosed and treated for breast cancer from 2004 to 2009 at the San Cecilio University Hospital in Granada. The team looked at factors including age of diagnosis, period of lactation, family history of cancer, obesity, alcohol consumption, and smoking habits.
Their analysis revealed that women who underwent childbirth and who breastfed were diagnosed with breast cancer at a later age, regardless of the patients’ family history of cancer. Nonsmokers who breastfed for periods of longer than 6 months tended to be diagnosed with breast cancer much later in life—an average of 10 years later than nonsmokers who breastfed for a shorter period. In contrast, female smokers were diagnosed with breast cancer at a younger age and obtained no significant benefit from a longer period of breastfeeding.
Potential Ally Against Breast Cancer
“The results suggest that for nonsmokers, breastfeeding for more than 6 months not only provides children with numerous health benefits, but it also may protect mothers from breast cancer,” said Dr. González-Jiménez.
The results were consistent with those obtained in previous studies in developed countries, which showed that the incidence of breast cancer could be reduced from 6.3% to 2.7% if women breastfed their children for more than 6 months. The authors observed that the modern tendency not to breastfeed may be a “crucial factor” in the increasing rate of breast tumors, citing studies indicating that a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer increases when she does not breastfeed her children. “Breastfeeding is a potential ally in the fight against breast tumors,” they wrote.
The content in this post has not been reviewed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Inc. (ASCO®) and does not necessarily reflect the ideas and opinions of ASCO®.
