More and more research is being done to explore a child’s lifelong benefit from breastfeeding but new research has identified a link between breast feeding and a mother’s reduced risk of developing crippling rheumatoid arthritis (RA), according to a recent study report presented in the online issue of the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

When 136 women who have rheumatoid arthritis were compared with 544 women the same age but who do not have RA, it was found that the women who had breast fed a child were less likely to have the disease. Those who breast fed the longest, 13 months or more, enjoyed a rate of risk for rheumatoid arthritis about half that of women who had not ever breast fed. Breast feeding for a shorter duration, one month to a year, reduced risk by about 25%.
 

Breast feeding was compared to taking oral contraceptives, which contain the hormones associated with pregnancy, but there was no similar benefit found in taking the oral contraceptives.

Over the past 30 years, the number of women choosing to breast feed has grown dramatically. The research team reports that it is difficult to conclusively link breast feeding to a reduced risk for rheumatoid arthritis but the research strengthens the growing body of evidence that breast feeding is beneficial to the baby and, quite possibly, to the mother, too.

Source: BMJ