Breastfeeding

Reducing your chances of breast cancer by lactating- even pre-pregnacy ?

The following is an excerpt from "Fresh Milk: The Secret Life of Breasts" By Fiona Giles

"Sandra Steingraber's work for the Cornell Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors has also argued strongly for the health benefits of lactating as a means of ridding women's bodies of toxins. She writes, "The problem with dioxins, and other fat-soluble persistent contaminants, is that you can't easily metabolize and pee them out. Lactation, which does remove fat from a woman's body, is the only effective way to purge dioxin from the body." The results were impressive. A Swedish study concluded that one American woman who breastfed her twins for three years "dropped her body burden of dioxins by 69 percent."

This of course raises fears in mothers' minds that they are passing toxins on to their babies when they breastfeed, an anxiety that the tabloid press has been quick to exploit. However, Steingraber counsels that breastmilk is still superior to formula as a food for children. This is partly because formula is so deficient biochemically, and partly because the extra body fat put on during pregnancy specifically to fuel milk production is new, and therefore virtually toxin-free. It is only in the stored fat, where a lifetime of pollutants might have built up, that problems lie, especially for older mothers who were exposed to higher levels of DDT and dioxins. If it were better known that women could lactate before giving birth, they could rid their bodies of any possible contamination whenever they pleased, benefiting both themselves and their babies."


Yes it is possible to for a woman to lactate WITHOUT being pregnant. Adoptive mothers can breastfeed their adopted baby with some preparation. Grandmothers have been known to lactate for their grandchildren. And it sounds like if we can lactate prior to pregnancy we may be able to lower our risk of breast cancer by eliminating dioxins that cause it. What are your thoughts on the matter?
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