Massachusetts Personal Injury Library

Breast-feeding benefits mothers health

Massachusetts attorney Thomas M. Kiley concentrates on legal issues surrounding children’s health. A recent article in The New York Times cited a study that suggests that women who breast-feed their babies are at lower risk for developing high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease later in life.

The study published in the May journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology analyzed the data kept of 139,681 women who enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-term national study of postmenopausal women. The study found that women who breast-fed for more than a year in their lifetimes were 10% less likely than those who had never breast-fed to have had a heart attack or a stroke in their postmenopausal years. They were also less likely to have diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol. Even women who had breast-fed for just one month had lower rates.

The study found that women who had more than a year of breast-feeding were 20% less likely to have diabetes, 12% less likely to have hypertension, 19% less likely to have high cholesterol, and 9% less likely to have had a heart attack or stroke.

The new study's chief author, Dr. Eleanor Bimla Schwarz, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, said this study proves that breast-feeding is not only good for the baby’s health, but the mother’s health as well.

The National Resource Defense Council also cited studies indicating that breastfeeding helps improve mothers’ health, as well as their children’s. A woman grows both physically and emotionally from the relationship she forms with her baby. Just as a woman’s breast milk is designed specifically to nourish her baby, the production and delivery of this milk aids her own health.

Breastfeeding helps a woman to lose weight after birth. Mothers burn many calories during lactation as their bodies produce milk. Some of the weight gained during pregnancy serves as an energy source for lactation. Breastfeeding releases a hormone in the mother (oxytocin) that causes the uterus to return to its normal size more quickly. When a woman gives birth and nurses her baby, she protects herself from becoming pregnant again too soon. Therefore, breastfeeding provides a form of birth control found to be 98 percent effective — more effective than a diaphragm or condom. Scientists believe this process prevents more births worldwide than all forms of contraception combined. In Africa, breastfeeding prevents an estimated average of four births per woman, and in Bangladesh it prevents an estimated average of 6.5 births per woman.

Breastfeeding also reduces the mother’s risk of developing osteoporosis in later years. Although mothers experience bone-mineral loss during breastfeeding, their mineral density is replenished and even increased after lactation.

The emotional health of the mother also improves by the relationship she develops with her baby during breastfeeding, that results in fewer feelings of anxiety and a stronger sense of connection with her baby.

The benefits of breastfeeding go beyond improving the mother’s health. Mothers who nurse their children enjoy social and economic advantages as well. Women who breastfeed save money because they aren’t buying infant formula, an average expense of $800 per year.