Breastfeeding for a year doesn’t just benefit a baby
It also reduces a mother’s chances of heart disease
Breastfeeding for a year reduces a mother’s chances of suffering a heart attack or stroke later in life, according to new research.
A study found that the longer a mother breastfeeds, the greater the cardiovascular health benefit appears to be.
Previous studies have suggested that mothers get short-term health benefits from breastfeeding, including weight loss and lower cholesterol, blood pressure and glucose levels after pregnancy.
But the long-term effects of breastfeeding on the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases in mothers are unclear.
Now a new study has found that women who breastfeed for 12 months have nearly a ten per cent lower risk of developing heart disease or suffering a stroke later in life.
Researchers from Oxford University, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking University analysed figures from 289,573 Chinese women with an average age of 51.
Chinese women breastfeed their babies for an average of 12 months.
Nearly all were mothers and none had cardiovascular disease when they enrolled in the study.
After eight years of follow-up, there were 16,671 cases of coronary heart disease, which includes heart attacks, and 23,983 stroke cases.
Compared to women who had never breastfed, mothers who breastfed their babies had a nine per cent lower risk of heart disease and an eight per cent lower risk of stroke.
Among mums who breastfed each of their babies for two years or more, heart disease risk was 18 per cent lower and stroke risk was 17 per cent lower than among mothers who never breastfed.
And each additional six months of breastfeeding per baby was associated with a four per cent lower risk of heart disease and a three per cent lower risk of stroke. The researchers considered a range of risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including smoking, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and physical activity that could have biased results.