Study suggests breastfeeding could lower risk of leukemia
A new study, published in the medical journey JAMA Perdiatrics, has found that breastfeeding could lower a child’s risk of developing leukemia.
As part of their research, researchers looked at eighteen previous published studies that had researched the link between breastfeeding and leukemia by conducting research on over 10,000 children diagnosed with leukemia and over 17,000 who were not, and found that babies who breastfed for six months or longer appeared to have had reduced their chances of developing the disease by nineteen percent.
As well as this, the researchers also found that babies who had breastfed even for a period of only one month lowered their risk of developing the disease by eleven percent.
The study’s lead author, Efrat Amitay, of the School of Public Health at the University of Haifa in Israel said that they wished to inform not just mothers but the general public of its health benefits:
“The many potential preventive health benefits of breastfeeding should also be communicated openly to the general public, not only to mothers, so breastfeeding can be more socially accepted and facilitated,” the researchers wrote.
While the study’s findings are only a connection between breastfeeding and leukemia, they prove to be interesting and we hope to hear more.
maternity & infant