I finally found an article that discusses how childbirth and nursing reduce the risk of breast cancer. I had read about it in a WIC office several years ago, but have since not been able to find a place to point to until now.
From the American Cancer Society website:
Breastfeeding Can Reduce A Woman's Risk Of Breast Cancer
Childbirth alone reduces the risk by 4% per baby. (me 36% right there) Nursing reduces the risk by an additional 7% per year. (That adds upwards of 70% reduction). Why doesn't the media talk about those statistics? Why don't the schools?
Yes, just like they don't talk about how couples who abstain until marriage don't get ANY STDs. (And yet, for all of my pregnancies I have had to be tested for all of them anyway. Because, as Dr. House says, "Everyone lies.")
I don't mean to be crass or inappropriate, it just makes me frustrated that society is quick to judge me if I eat red meat or do not recycle but it also judges me if I procreate as God has designed....
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I've also heard that nursing for 6 years (in any combination of months) reduces your risk to near nil. Lately I've been praying for compassion towards women who did not bfeed and get breast cancer. It certainly doesn't come naturally for me when it's so easily preventable. But I keep reminding myself, it was a different culture in the 60s,70s, and 80s. I would have been one of those puritan Jesus freaks who nursed only because she believed it was the Lord's Order.
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