In addition to being beneficial for infants, breastfeeding can help protect a mother’s health.
Studies have shown that it can reduce the risk of breast cancer, and now our data suggest that it might also lower the risk of type 2 diabetes. We looked at the total amount of time that women spent breastfeeding by adding up the time spent nursing each child. We found that for each additional year that women spent breastfeeding, their risk of diabetes went down by about 15%. Although breastfeeding does facilitate postpartum weight loss, and obesity is associated with diabetes risk, this did not completely explain our findings. (Stuebe A et al. JAMA2005; 294:2601)