Breastfeeding reduces breast cancer risk, study finds

Mother's milk is well known as the wonder meal for a new-born, with an exclusively breastfed child 14 times less likely to die in the first six months as against a non-breastfed child. However, breast-feeding has now been found to have clear benefits for even the mother.
Scientists have now found that breastfeeding greatly reduces the risk of a type of breast cancer that commonly affects younger woman, and is usually known to have poor prognosis.



According to a study conducted at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health that should come as an eye-opener for Indian women — less than half of whom breast-feed their child — breast-feeding has been found to reduce the risk for estrogen receptor-negative and progesterone receptor-negative breast cancer.
Researchers examined the association between reproductive risk factors — such as the number of children a woman delivers, breast feeding and oral contraceptive use - and found an increased risk for estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor (ER/PR)-negative breast cancer in women, who do not breast-feed.


The results also indicated that having three or more children without breast-feeding was associated with an increased risk for ER/PR-negative breast cancer.
"Women who had children but did not breast-feed had about 1.5 times the risk for ER/PR-negative breast cancer," said Meghan Work, the study's lead author.

"If women breast-fed their children, there was no increased risk for ER/PR-negative cancer. This is particularly important as breast-feeding is a modifiable factor that can be promoted and supported through health policy," Work said.


The researchers used data from three sites of the Breast Cancer Family Registry, which includes women with and without breast cancer from the US, Canada and Australia. The study included 4,011 women with breast cancer, and 2,997 population-based controls.
UNICEF says that despite compelling evidence that exclusive breast-feeding prevents diarrhea and pneumonia among children and also helps mothers, global rates of breast-feeding have remained relatively stagnant in the developing world, growing from 32% in 1995 to 39% in 2010.



The recent Lancet Nutrition Series also highlighted the remarkable fact that a non-breastfed child is 14 times more likely to die in the first six months than an exclusively breastfed child.

Experts say breast milk promotes sensory and cognitive development and protects the infant against infectious and chronic diseases.

Breast-feeding also contributes to the health being of mothers — it helps to space children and reduces the risk of ovarian cancer and breast cancer.

Studies show that women who breastfed their infants had up to a 12% reduced risk of type 2 diabetes for each year they breastfed, decreased the risk of ovarian cancer by up to 21%, decreased the risk of breast cancer by up to 28% in those whose lifetime duration of breastfeeding was 12 months or longer.



India's Union health ministry says children should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months and should not be given anything else, even water. Colostrum, the human breast milk, is very rich in proteins, vitamin A and sodium chloride, but contains lower amounts of carbohydrates, potassium, and fat (as human newborns may find fat difficult to digest), than normal milk.
Experts say newborns have very small digestive systems and colostrum delivers its nutrients in a very concentrated low-volume form.

It has a mild laxative effect, clears excess bilirubin which is produced in large quantities at birth due to blood volume reduction from the infant's body and helps prevent jaundice.

In India, very few children are put to the breast immediately after birth.



Though 96% of children (both urban and rural population) under age five have ever been breastfed, only 29% started breast-feeding within half an hour of birth in urban population and 21% in rural population. Only 30% of infants (in urban population) started breast-feeding within one hour of birth, as is recommended, the figure goes down to 22% in rural population.
Almost 35% of infants (in urban population) did not start breast-feeding within one day of birth and almost half (48%) in rural population did not start breast-feeding within one day.

Times of India

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