Natural Family Planning International

Some years ago I had received a letter from a nursing mother who gave her reason for ecological breastfeeding: to avoid ovarian cancer.  She named several older female relatives in her family who had had ovarian cancer.

A recent study of 24,000 women, reported in the JAMA Oncology journal (April 2020), supports the benefit of breastfeeding to reduce the risk of getting this disease.  Here are the results of that ovarian cancer study:

Breastfeeding is associated with a significant decrease in the risk of ovarian cancer, including its most lethal type.  Women who breastfed overall reduced their risk of developing this disease by an average of 24%, but protection increased with longer duration of breastfeeding.

A breastfeeding duration of 1-3 months was associated with a 18% lower risk.

A breastfeeding duration of 12 or more months was associated with a 34% lower risk.  This benefit lasted for 30 years after the breastfeeding had ceased!!

If a woman gets this disease, she has only about a 45% chance of surviving at least 5 years after her diagnosis.

In this study titled “Association between breastfeeding and ovarian cancer risk,” the researchers try to explain why breastfeeding reduces ovarian cancer risk, but they cannot do so with certainty.  The practical bottom line: There is no doubt that breastfeeding gives good but not absolute protection against ovarian cancer.  I am happy  that we emphasize Ecological Breastfeeding in the NFPI teaching program.

Sheila Kippley
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding

Ecological Breastfeeding is a pattern of breastfeeding based on seven maternal behaviors that keep mother and baby together and allow frequent suckling. We call them the Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding.  Exclusive Breastfeeding is the first of these seven standards, but it lasts for only six months or so.  The other Standards such as “Don’t use pacifiers”, “Don’t use bottles”, and “Take your baby with you” are counter-cultural, but mothers who do Ecological Breastfeeding love it.  Their baby will have reduced risks of contracting at least 20 nasty diseases, and mothers will also experience reduced risks of contracting breast cancer and at least seven other diseases.  No pharmaceutical product or behavioral process can come close to these benefits.  Parents experience the joy that comes from doing what they know is best for their baby, and they also appreciate not having to buy any formula, probably saving about $2,000 with each baby.

Mothers also love not having a first period until 14 to 15 months postpartum.  (That’s an average with both shorter and longer durations of not having periods).  Visit the NFPI website—www.nfpandmore.org—and you will see several books on this subject.  Just recently (mid-January) we received a gracious letter from a mother who delivered a baby 27 months after her first baby, the spacing due solely to Ecological Breastfeeding.  For research, see http://www.nfpandmore.org/nfpresearch.shtml.

John and Sheila Kippley
www.NFPandmore.org