Breastfeeding Benefits For Moms Greater Than Previously Believed
Not that you needed another reason to choose breastfeeding — or pat yourself on the back if you did/do, or feel horribly guilty and pissed off if you didn’t/don’t — but this week came news reports of even more dramatic health benefits for moms who breastfeed. The new study, published in the May issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology, found that women who had breastfed were less likely to develop high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease than their non-nursing counterparts, and that the effect increases with increasing duration of breastfeeding.
The study looked at the data of 139,681 post-menopausal women whose health records have been followed as part of the Women’s Health Initiative. Those who breastfed for more than a year over the course of their lives, the study found, were almost ten times less likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke than those who hadn’t nursed at all, and they were 20 percent less likely to have diabetes, 12 percent less likely to have
hypertension, 19 percent less likely to have high cholesterol. Even one month of breastfeeding was associated with lowered rates of diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
Studies like this are often criticized for offering correlation but not causation — they are not constructed as a double-blind study with controls, and so it’s hard to tease out just which health benefits come from breastfeeding and which tend to go along with being the type of mother for whom breastfeeding is a priority (breastfeeding rates are much higher for richer, better-educated women overall). As one doctor told the New York Times, those who breastfeed
Women who are able to breastfeed for a year or longer are more likely to be upper class, well off financially, and the kind of person who follows through on medical instructions in general. This is really most likely a correlation not causation.
Eeek, Sara, so bizarrely personal. I do appreciate the comments, however negative, about the blog post, but since I don’t think we know each other and I’m not sure what you’re getting from my work, I want to tell you not to worry; my life is going just fine.
Wow, Sarah, that was really harsh.
Whoa Sara – nothing like drawing conclusions without causation! The fact that women who breastfed more compared to women who breastfed less is not a leap Kate has made, but an actual fact from the study.
You’re behaving like a cliche — everyone who is trying to justify a poor statistical argument tries to fall back on smoking. Those results are generally accepted for two important reasons: (1) the astonishing difference in outcomes between smokers and non-smokers and (2) a sensible and falsifiable biological explanation.
I understand from reading your work that things aren’t going so well in your life and that breastfeeding is one of your few accomplishments lately. But that’s no excuse for trying to distort science.
I don’t think that’s what I said at all, Sara! I think the evidence of a dose response difference argues for causation, even though there can never be a double-blind experiment.
Hell, there are no double-blind research studies on the link between cigarette smoking and cancer (and for 50 years the tobacco industry said “correlation is not causation”) but nobody now doubts the link.
I love how you essentially said, “I know correlation is not causation, but I want it to be in this case, so I’m going to pretend the distinction isn’t important.”