Mexican Women Who Breastfeed May Be More Likely to Develop Breast Cancer

Women who have children at an early age and breastfeed their babies are generally considered to be of less risk of developing breast cancer. But new research led by scholars at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine finds that this may not hold true for Mexican women. The study, published on the website of the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, found that women of Mexican descent who had more children and who breastfed, were more likely to be diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer.

They study examined the behaviors of more than 1,000 Mexican and Mexican American women with breast cancer. The study found that women who breastfed for 12 months or more were more than twice as likely to develop triple negative breast cancer.

Maria Elena Martinez, the Sam M. Walton Endowed Chair for Cancer Research at the University of California, San Diego and the lead author of the study, stated, “We found that breastfeeding in women of Mexican descent is associated with triple negative breast cancer. This was quite surprising. No other study has seen this correlation before. Most studies show health benefits of breastfeeding. Our results are both puzzling and disconcerting because we do not want to give the wrong message about breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is beneficial to both mother and baby.”