Natural Family Planning International

This is Pink October when pink clothing is popular and products are redesigned in pink to promote breast cancer awareness, research, and prevention.  Unfortunately,  Pink October “breast cancer” articles invariably fail to mention the protective benefit of breastfeeding.

An astounding 2007 study by the American Institute for Cancer Research and World Cancer Research Fund 
    The 517-page November 2007 report titled Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer  was the result of a five-year study involving nine independent teams of scientists, hundreds of peer reviewers, and 21 international experts who reviewed over 7,000 large-scale studies on all aspects of cancer.
    The study reported a 2% drop in breast cancer risk for each five months of breastfeeding and concluded that breastfeeding lowers the risk for both pre- and post-menopausal breast cancer.  As indicated by the title, the studies  looked at all the variables.  Of great importance, they found that lactation was the only variable that lowered the risk of breast cancer throughout a woman’s life!  Two likely reasons were given.
    1) Lactation delays the return of menstruation, and having fewer menstrual cycles over a lifetime tends to reduce the risk for breast cancer.
    2) Physical changes in the breast cells during lactation tend to make the breast cells more resistant to mutations that can lead to cancer.
    Breastfeeding also protects the child from cancer because breastfeeding reduces the child’s chance of being overweight, a risk factor for cancer.
    The breastfeeding recommendation of the AICR and WCRF is simple: Mothers should aim to breastfeed exclusively up to six months and continue with complementary feeding thereafter. “Exclusively” is defined in the study as “only breast milk—no water, other liquids or solids.”
    The results of the AICR/WCRF study confirm another excellent study which found that “the relative risk of breast cancer decreased by 4.3% for every 12 months of breastfeeding in addition to a decrease of 7% for each birth.”  Unfortunately, most mothers quit breastfeeding within 4 to 6 months.  However, if mothers in developed countries averaged 2.5 children and breastfed each child for 6 months longer than they currently do, about 25,000 fewer breast cancers would occur each year.  If mothers breastfed 12 months longer than usual, there would be about 50,000 fewer breast cancers each year (The Lancet 360:187-195, July 20, 2002).

The importance of the Seven Standards
 The Seven Standards of ecological breastfeeding are associated with natural child spacing via 1) exclusive breastfeeding, 2) extended breastfeeding, and 3) a lengthy absence of menstrual cycles.   These three events are associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer.  The frequent nursing of ecological breastfeeding provides the best odds for long-term nursing and therefore the best protection against breast cancer.
    Share this with your friends, especially during Pick October!

Sheila Kippley
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding: The Frequency Factor, 2008
Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing, 2008, classic 1974 edition
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood, 2005
www.nfpandmore.org

My advice to mothers is this:  Listen to your hearts.  Love your babies; hold your babies; read to your babies; sing to your babies; be there for them.

Ignore the advice of society’s control freaks.  Nurse your baby frequently.  Nurse your baby to sleep.  Nurse your baby all through the night in your bed with all the proper precautions and recommendations set by the experts.  Take your baby with you to meetings or shopping and to church.  Take the baby with you to that wedding.

Be one with your baby.  Stay attached.  Remember that breastfeeding is a continuation of pregnancy.  There are many similarities between breastfeeding and pregnancy, but the important one is the oneness a mother has with her baby.  Society needs to protect this oneness.  Our churches need to promote and protect this oneness.  Our husbands need to appreciate its value.

It is encouraging to see a psychiatrist like Dr. Elliott Barker promoting and teaching the importance of breastfeeding to society, as well as to the individual mother with her baby.  May we renew our efforts to do what we can to promote breastfeeding and to help nursing moms and their families.  Let’s give our children that healthy foundation!

(The last four blogs came from a luncheon address given by Sheila at the LLL Eastern Pennsylvania Area Conference, October 2000.)

The Croatian edition of Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood is now available.

Sheila Kippley
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding: The Frequency Factor, 2008
Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing, 2008, classic edition
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood, 2005
www.nfpandmore.org