.:: Health:


Breastfeeding Benefits Mothers' Health


Breastfeeding lowers a woman's risk of breast and ovarian cancers. Breastfeeding immediately after giving birth reduces a mother's risk of postpartum hemorrhage, and in subsequent months, reduces anemia.

Weight and fat loss, particularly in the lower body, are enhanced in obese women who exclusively breastfeed their infants and engage in exercise and eat a low-fat diet. Breastfeeding women showed a greater loss in weight, percent body fat, hip circumference and upper thigh circumference than both breastfeeding/supplementing and non-breastfeeding/supplementing and non-breastfeeding subjects at 3 months.

Romieu, I. et al. Breast cancer and lactation history in Mexican women. Am J Epidemiol 1996; 143(6):543-52.
Parous women who had ever lactated had a reduction in breast cancer risk, OR=0.39. Decreasing trends of breast cancer risk in relation to duration of lactation, number of children breastfed, and with lactation duration for the first live birth were observed for both pre- and postmenopausal women. Post menopausal women also showed a significant decrease in breast cancer risk with duration of lactation with the second live birth.

Singaglia, L. et al. Effect of lactation on postmenopausal bone mineral density of the lumbar spine. J Reprod Med 1996; 41(6):439-43.
A history of long-term breastfeeding for -18 months (total months of exclusive breastfeeding for all combined pregnancies) does not affect lumbar BMD in healthy, postmenopausal women, even when groups with the same number of live births are compared. These results indicate that breastfeeding should not be discouraged because it does not represent a risk factor for postmenopausal osteoporosis in otherwise healthy women.

Allemus, M. et al. Suppression of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis responses to stress in lactating women. J Clin. in Endocrinol Metab 1995;80(9):2954-59.
Lactation is associated with several indices of suppression of the secretion of stress-responsive neurohormones in women, including a marked decrement in pituitary-adrenal responses to exercise and significant decreases in basal norepinephrine levels. These phenomena could conserve energy required for lactation, protect against stress-associated inhibition for lactation, relieve psychological stress, and enchanted immune function in lactating women.

Brun, J. G. et al. Breastfeeding, other reproductive factors and rheumatoid arthritis. A prospective study. Br J Rheumatology 1995;34:542-46.
In a large, population-based cohort of women followed for 29 years, total time of lactation was associated with a decreased mortality of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and with an approximate dose-response relationship. In separate analyses of duration of lactation for each of the first three deliveries, a similar reduction in risk of RA was found as that for total time of lactation. The negative dose-response relationship between lactation and RA may constitute evidence of a possible causal relationship.

Rosenblatt, K. et al. Prolonged lactation and endometrial cancer. Int J Epidemiol 1995;24(3):499-503.
Significant decreasing trends in risk for endometrial cancer were observed with increasing duration of lactation and with months breastfeeding per pregnancy. Risk was lowest in women who had most recently lactated: the apparent protective effect declined with time since cessation of breastfeeding.

Chilvers, C. Breastfeeding and risk of breast cancer in young women: United Kingdom National Case-Control Study Group. BMJ 1993;307:17-20.
Risk of breast cancer in young women fell with increasing duration of breastfeeding (three months or longer) and with number of babies breastfed.

Cumming, R. et al. Breastfeeding and other reproductive factors and the risk of hip fractures in elderly women. Int J Epidemiol 1993;22(4):684-91.
This study suggests that breastfeeding may protect parous women against hip fracture in old age.

Fox, K. et al. Reproductive correlates of bone mass in elderly women. J Bone &Min Res 1993;8(8):901-08.
While controlling for all other reproductive factors and covariables, women who breastfed had slightly higher radial bone density than women who never breastfed.

Kips, S. et al. The effect of lactation on glucose and lipid metabolism in women with recent gestational diabetes. Obstet Gynecol 1993;82(3):451-55.
Lactation, even for a short duration, has a beneficial effect on glucose and lipid metabolism in women with gestational diabetes; breastfeeding may offer a practical, low-cost intervention that helps reduce or delay the risk of subsequent diabetes in women with prior gestational diabetes.*

Roseblatt, K. et al. Lactation and the risk of epithelial ovarian cancer. Int J Epidemiol 1993;22(2):192-97.
The short-term lactation that takes place in developed countries may provide as a great a reduction in risk of epithelial ovarian cancer as the long term lactation practiced in the developing countries included in this study.

Wolf, M. et al. Blood levels of organochlorine residues and risk of breast cancer. J Nat Cancer Inst 1993; 85(8):648-52.
The effect of lactation itself was protective; when we examined months of lactation as a continuous variable, the decrease in odds of the ratio for breast cancer per additional months of lactation was 0.88.

Kritz-Silverstein, D. et al. Pregnancy and lactation as determinants of bone mineral density in postmenopausal women. Am J Epidemiol 1992;136(9):1052-59.
Unadjusted comparison indicated that bone mineral density of the wrist, radius, and hip increased with increasing numbers of pregnancies, and women who had breastfed had higher bone mineral densities at these sites.

Reuter, K. et al. Risk factors for breast cancer in women undergoing mammography, Am J Roentgenol 1992;158(2):273-78.
Lactation had a small but statistically significant protective effect against breast cancer in all the women we studied and in the subgroup of postmenopausal women.

Yoo, K. et al. Independent protective effect of lactation against breast cancer: A case-control study in Japan. Am J Epidemiol 1992; 135(7):726-33.
The trend of decreasing risk with increasing average months of breastfeeding was statistically significant.

Specker, B. et al. Changes in calcium homeostasis over the first year postpartum: Effect of lactation and weaning. Obstet Gynecol 1991;78(1):56-62
Our findings during lactation and the persistent differences observed during and after weaning are consistent with bone mobilization during lactation and a recovery of bone mass during and after weaning.

Coppe, G.V. et al. Preliminary study of breastfeeding and bacterial adhesion to unepithelial cells. Lancet 1990.
Breastfeeding may have a preventative effect on urinary tract infection in both mother and baby.

Gwinn, M.L. et al. Pregnancy, Breast feeding and oral contraceptives and the risk of epithelial ovarian cancer. J. Clin Epidemiol 1990.
A marked reduction in the risk of developing epithelial ovarian cancer was associated with ever having breastfed.

Patton, S. et al. Carotenoids of human polostrum. Lipids 1990.
Carotenoids, pigments in colostrum, might play a protective role with respect to breast cancer. These findings imply a difference in carotenoid transport by breasts that have lactated as compared to those that have not.

Layde, P.M. et al. The independent associations of parity, age at first full term pregnancy, and duration of breastfeeding with the risk of breast cancer. J Clin Epidemiol 1989.
After controlling for age at first full-term pregnancy and other potentially confounding factors, parity and duration of breastfeeding also had a strong influence on the risk of breast cancer. Compared with parous women who never breastfed, women who had breastfed, women who had breastfed for 25 months or more had an adjusted relative risk.

Items Marked with an Asterisk* are from "Facts About Breastfeeding", a fact sheet provided by La Leche League. We gratefully acknowledge their contribution. For more information, please visit their website at:

http://www.lalecheleague.org