Lactating mothers in Kiambu have been urged to embrace breastfeeding for their children rather than bottle feeding as it is one way of avoiding pre and post-menopausal breast cancer.
Speaking in his office on Thursday, the Kiambu Level Four Hospital Superintendent Dr David Kariuki noted that continuous breastfeeding helps mothers in controlling the level of oestrogen which promotes breast cancer as menstrual cycles are delayed.
He said that breastfeeding mothers help remove cells with potential DNA damage which can lead to the disease and thus help reduce the chances of contracting it.
“Women who have many children and breastfeed each baby for a long time seem to be at a lower risk of getting breast cancer as compared to women who have smaller families and breastfeed for a shorter time,” said Dr Kariuki.
Dr Kariuki advised mothers to breastfeed their babies for a period of at least more than six months as the significant results on reduced chances of breast cancer were evident then. He further added that women should avoid the stigma of sagging breasts and embrace it fully to enjoy its health benefits.
Speaking in regards to the issue, Marion Wanja, a patient at the Kiambu hospital, said that she was afraid of her breasts sagging and that she would look ugly to her husband so she has been using the bottle to feed her child.
She said she was going to change that although the trauma was the big issue dealing with.
According to an article by Kathleen Doheny, 2015 she cited a research by the Kaiser Permanente in Oakland which showed that women who had breast cancer and had resumed breastfeeding had a 30 percent overall reduction of their disease recurring and also a 28 percent reduced risk of dying from the same disease.
The research also showed that breastfeeding protective effect in lowering the chances of recurrence or death from breast cancer, was strongest against the most commonly diagnosed breast cancer and that woman who breastfeed get less aggressive breast cancer.