Lower Blood Pressure

Breast Feeding Your Baby can Reduce Your Heart Attack Risk

 

A large US study involving over one hundred thousand women has concluded that breast feeding your baby as a new Mom can protect you against heart disease, heart attacks and strokes in later life.

The investigations were carried out by a team of scientists and medical experts based at the University of Pittsburgh, and published in the medical journal ‘Obstetrics and Gynaecology’.

 

 

Study follows through from child birth to Menopause

 

It has followed the health of the study volunteers from their early child bearing years, through their later years and into the menopause stage of their lives.

The following findings were discovered by the research team, which was led by Dr. Eleanor Bimla Schwarz :-

• long term breastfeeding  for more than a year) reduces the risk of suffering from a heart attack or a stroke by more than 10%
• A very short period of breastfeeding, typically just for a month after giving birth, was found to produce beneficial lower blood pressure and lower cholesterol, plus lower recorded rates of diabetes, all of which form significant risk factors in cardiovascular disease later in life
• The reduction in the instances of high blood pressure was 12%, whilst the reduction in instances of high cholesterol was even higher at 20%.

 

Employers need to facilitate breast feeding for women at work

 

Dr Schwarz contextualises the research findings towards employers, and promoting breast feeding wherever possible, especially encouraging new mothers to feed their babies where they work, when they go back to work.

Over the other side of the Atlantic, the United Kingdom now has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates anywhere, with nearly a third of all new Moms never even attempting to breast feed their babies.

A spokesperson from the UK National Childbirth Trust, Rosie Dodds, has called upon the UK government to assist with the promotion and facilitation of breast feeding in the workplace, and in more public locations.

If you have experienced any difficulties or obstacles when breast feeding your baby at work, or in public, please leave a comment below – we’d like to hear about your experiences