Breast milk is the best food for a growing infant. Studies show that those children who have been breast fed tend to have better health outcomes than those who have not been breastfed. In this respect the nutrition of the mother is important because it dictates to some extent the nutrition within the milk and therefore the health of the child. For example, high intakes of the long chain fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, C22:6 (n-3)) increase the DHA content of the maternal milk and this in turn improves the cognitive development of the child. Studies are now showing that infant nutrition during the first few years of life has a strong impact on the modification of subsequent disease risk in adult life. However, breastfeeding may also have substantial health benefits for the mother. In particular, breastfeeding is associated with a reduced risk of certain types of cancer. The reduction in the risk of breast cancer is fairly well researched but the risk of other cancers such as ovarian cancer is less well researched.
However, data has been published on the association between breastfeeding and ovarian cancer. In one study1, researchers performed a meta-analysis on existing studies to investigate a possible association between breastfeeding and ovarian cancer. Using data from five prospective studies and 30 case-control studies, the results showed that for every 5 months of breastfeeding the risk of epithelial ovarian cancer when down 8 %. Therefore evidence in the nutritional literature suggests that breastfeeding duration is associated with a reduced risk of epithelial ovarian cancer. Because epithelial ovarian cancer is the second most common form of gynaecological cancer in women and accounts for almost 4.3 % of cancer deaths, these results are significant. The reason for the protective effect of breastfeeding on epithelial ovarian cancer is not known, but may relate to reductions in gonadotrophin concentrations that suppress ovulation, a hypothesis supported by the inverse association between menarcheal age and cancer risk.
Dr Robert Barrington’s Nutritional Advice: Evidence suggests that breastfeeding has health benefits for both the mother and the infant. A high quality diet on the part of the mother in combination with a slightly longer breastfeeding period appears to offer the best health outcomes for mother and child.
RdB
