To Reduce Risk of Breast Cancer, Black Women Strongly Urged to Breastfeed Their Babies
Date: Monday, October 15, 2007
By: Jackie Jones, BlackAmericaWeb.com
Researchers have known for quite some time that women who bear children before age 25 have a lower risk for breast cancer than women who have children after 25. They also know breastfeeding decreases the risk of all kinds of breast cancer -- and that young black women are less likely than white women to do it.
Researchers aren’t certain why, but there are several myths about breastfeeding that may contribute to the decision not to breastfeed, including:
- Breastfeeding ruins the shape of your breasts. False. Permanent changes do occur in the breast when a woman becomes pregnant, and breasts are affected by such factors as heredity or excessive weight loss or gain, but breastfeeding makes no difference.
- Artificial breast milk or formula is as good as the real thing. False. As the song goes, “Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing.” Human milk has live cells and human hormones that cannot be replaced by milk from another species. Further, the companies that make baby formula can’t replicate all of the ingredients in breast milk and are constantly tinkering with their recipes.
- Breastfeeding will make you fat. False. Breastfeeding actually burns an additional 300 to 500 calories a day.
Some studies suggest women who return to the workforce shortly after giving birth because they don’t have maternity leave, flexible schedules or anywhere to comfortably express breast milk for their babies often decide against breastfeeding.
One woman, who asked that her name not be disclosed, told BlackAmericaWeb.com she stopped breastfeeding after she put a “Do Not Disturb” note on her office door and a colleague wrote at the bottom, “She’s sleeping.”
“I guess he thought it was a joke,” said the woman, who returned to work a few months after giving birth to twins. “And in all fairness to him, my hormones were probably all over the place. But that’s about as insensitive as you can get.”
The incident left her in tears, and she gave up pumping milk at work, “‘cause if I have to close my door and people are acting as if I’m slacking off as opposed to having twins that I have to feed … ” she said, letting her voice trail off.
It’s not exactly the kind of situation that encourages women to do something that, ultimately, is in their best interest.
Dr. Giske Ursin, a researcher and an associate professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, said the benefits of breastfeeding were about equal for black and white women.
Ursin said one study, in 2004, looked at whether the hormonal changes associated with pregnancy and breastfeeding were at play. What they found was breastfeeding definitely was a plus in reducing breast cancer. Researchers also discovered something else.
“What we did find was that African-American women tend to not breastfeed as much as white women, especially for the younger women,” Ursin said. “Among older African-American women who fed, it was about the same as white women. But among women 35 to 49, we found that white women breastfed to a much larger extent. It was more common, and they breastfed longer.
“This caused some concern,” Ursin said. “The protective effect of breastfeeding will become more important as we age.”
Ursin said that while the overall decrease in the risk of breast cancer wasn’t very large, for young women -- especially those in their 20s -- there was a 5 to 10 percent risk reduction for each year of breastfeeding. As women age, the risk for contracting breast cancer increases. Those who breastfeed, however, experience a reduction in that risk.
Further, Ursin said, breastfeeding seems to mitigate such factors as having many children later in life or having a first child later in life, both of which are usually associated with an increased risk of breast cancer.
For example, researchers found that women 55 to 64 who had several children after the age of 25, experienced no reduction in the risk for breast cancer -- except among those who had breastfed.
“Now, looking at late (pregnancies) and whether they breastfed, breastfeeding seemed to make up for the effect of giving birth late,” Ursin said.
“If breastfeeding rates remain low and the parity rate continues to decrease over time among young African-American women, a more rapid increase in breast carcinoma incident rates in this group, compared with white women, could result,” the study said. “Breastfeeding, and doing so for a longer duration, could reduce the risk of breast carcinoma and should be encouraged, especially among young African-American women.”
A second study funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Cancer Institute, released in April of this year, confirmed the benefits of breastfeeding.
That study showed breastfeeding lowered the risk of later breast cancer for a more aggressive form of cancer whose growth is not promoted by estrogen or progesterone receptors -- growth that is not promoted by hormones -- as in the more common types of breast cancer.
Women who develop breast cancer that is hormone receptor negative have a much poorer prognosis than women with other types of breast cancer. Young black women constitute a disproportionate percentage of women with hormone receptor-negative cancers that are insensitive to hormone therapy.
The news was also especially important, again, to women who bear children after age 25 and have three or more children. Women in those categories have twice the risk of the aggressive cancer that is more difficult to treat. According to the study, the increased risk disappeared in women who breastfed.
"As more women may choose to delay pregnancy until after 25, it is important to note that breastfeeding provides protection against both estrogen and progesterone receptor positive and negative tumors," Ursin said when results were announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Los Angeles.
The bottom line, Ursin said, is that at any age, breastfeeding is beneficial to women.
“Absolutely,” she said. “That’s it.”
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