Breastfeeding not only protects babies from premature deaths and disease but also mothers from breast cancer and heart attacks, suggests a study published in the journal Maternal and Child Nutrition. Breastfeeding helps mothers reduce their chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer, premenopausal ovarian cancer, diabetes, hypertension and heart attacks, states the study.
It reduces a child’s risk of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia; Crohn’s disease; ulcerative colitis; ear, gastrointestinal and lower respiratory tract infections; obesity; necrotizing enterocolitis; and sudden infant death syndrome.
“Breastfeeding has long been framed as a child health issue, however it is clearly a women’s health issue as well,” says Eleanor Bimla Schwarz, Professor at University of California — Davis Health System. “Breastfeeding helps prevent cancer, diabetes and heart disease, yet many women have no idea breastfeeding has any of these benefits.”
For the study, the research team modelled two groups, with an “optimal” group in which the majority of mums breastfed as recommended. That group was compared with a “suboptimal” group, in which young mothers breastfed less than the recommended guidelines.
Using existing research and government data, they projected the rates and costs of diseases that breastfeeding is known to reduce, along with rates and costs of early deaths from those diseases.
