Breast milk is the best food for the baby due to the great benefits it provides, being the only one necessary during the first six months of life, and supplemented with other foods until at least the first two years of life, according to the recommendation of the WHO.
But breastfeeding also has many benefits for the mother. Among them, it favors the contraction of the uterus after childbirth and prevents postpartum hemorrhages, and reduces the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. It is also related to a lower risk of diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, and specifically that women who breastfeed have a lower risk of heart attack and stroke .
Stroke and heart attacks in women
Stroke is the leading cause of death in women in our country . About 425,000 women die of stroke each year, 55,000 more than men.
In the case of heart attacks, they tend to appear later than in men (in them the greatest risk is between 40-50 years, while in them at 50-60 years, in menopause – it is believed that hormones act protective shield-), but in them it presents a higher mortality and a greater risk of complications in case of survival.
Breastfeeding reduces the risk of future stroke and heart attack
Scientific studies
The conclusions of the scientific investigations carried out agree with the recommendations of the WHO, and is that the risk is reduced as the mother breastfeeds more and more. That is, the longer you breastfeed, the lower the risks.
A study, which was published in 2017 in the Journal of the American Heart Association , had a sample of about 300,000 Chinese women with an average age of 51, whose histories were analyzed to find out their reproductive history and lifestyle habits. .
These women were followed for eight years , and although at the beginning of the study there were no women who had suffered from any cardiovascular disease, at the end there had been 16,761 cases of heart disease or myocardial infarction and 23,983 strokes.
They saw that when comparing women who had breastfed with women who had not, they appeared more affected in the second group, and thus they established that women who breastfeed their children for six months have a 9% lower risk of suffering from coronary heart disease and / or heart attack , and 8% less to suffer a stroke .
These figures were increasing little by little, so that women who breastfeed for two years have an 18% lower risk of coronary heart disease and / or heart attack and 17% less risk of stroke.
To avoid confounding factors, variables such as smoking, obesity, diabetes, arterial hypertension and the physical exercise they practiced were analyzed, confirming that the differences were also produced when these variables were controlled.
23 percent lower risk of stroke
Another study, published in the same scientific journal a year later, in 2018, confirms this reduction in the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
The study examined the data of 80,191 American women participating in the observational study ‘Women’s Health Initiative’. These data contained the medical histories and health habits of postmenopausal women recruited between 1993 and 1998, who had given birth to one or more babies, and 58% of whom breastfed their children at some point.
The mean age of these women at the beginning of the study was 63.7 years and they were followed for 12.6 years . Fifty-one percent of the participants had breastfed for between one and six months, 22% for 7-12 months, and 27% for 13 or more months.
According to the results, among women who practiced breastfeeding, the risk of stroke was, on average, 23% lower. In addition, in those who had breastfed their babies for at least six months the risk was 19% lower, so the longer duration of breastfeeding also led to a decreased risk of stroke.
A consistent association
In both studies, the authors affirm that the association found between breastfeeding and a lower risk of stroke is consistent; however, as they are observational studies, they have not been able to identify a cause and effect relationship, so they admit that it is possible the possibility that there are other factors that have influenced to modify the risk.
When in doubt, of course, it is advisable to suspect that the benefit exists and to investigate to find the most plausible and definitive answer. And they believe that as the body of the nursing mother uses fat reserves to become part of the milk, the risk of cardiovascular disease decreases. Perhaps that is why the American Heart Association recommends maintaining breastfeeding until the baby is one year old , whenever possible, and taking into account that every six months the risk decreases a little more (from 3 to 4 %).
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