Breast Cancer? No Thanks!

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Women the world over are affected by breast cancer. Over 231,000 women in the US alone are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. This is an astounding number. There are a lot of rumors floating around about this condition. Some will blame different factors for causing the cancer. Most of them are unfounded claims, because a lot of people are uneducated as to the actual causes of cancer in the breasts. Once you are diagnosed with breast cancer, treatment can be fairly simple if you are in the early stages. Surgery may be surgery involved, but it doesn’t mean that you have to lose the tissue of an entire breast, if the cancer has been detected early enough.

Photo credit: euthman / Foter / CC BY

The relationship between pregnancy and breast cancer

Pregnant women or women thinking about having a baby may actually be having second thoughts about conceiving. Unfortunately there are a rumors that pregnancy increases the risk of breast cancer. While breast cancer is directly linked to your exposure to certain hormones which are produced in excess during your pregnancy, it does not mean you will get cancer just because you get pregnant. Here are three main relationships between breast cancer and pregnancy. While living in Scottsdale during my pregnancy, I did as much research as possible into all of these factors:

Age

If you got pregnant in your 30s or older, you are going to have a higher risk of breast cancer than younger women. This is true for the type of breast cancer known as hormone receptor positive breast cancer. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you have to have a baby when you are 18. A lot of my friends in Scottsdale had kids in their late 20s and beyond, and they are all fine!

Breastfeeding

Some women elect never to breastfeed their kids. The longer you breastfeed your baby, the less chance you have of getting breast cancer, especially for an extended period of time (over a year).  There is an inverse correlation between the two. If you are thinking about bottle feeding your baby from day one, consider breastfeeding. If you are worried about the changes in shape your breasts, there are options. For me, that wasn’t a problem because breast augmentation in Scottsdale was fairly common after pregnancy. See what your area has to offer, just in case.

Number of kids

The number of kids that you have also show a direct relationship to your risk of getting breast cancer. Women who have more than five kids have only half the risk of women who have none, or one.  Keep in mind that this  evidence may be limited to hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. Of course, there are many other factors affecting the risk of breast cancer too.

Avoiding breast cancer with countermeasures

When you consider the factors that link pregnancy to breast cancer, you are also going to see a number of ways in which you can cut your risks.  Good luck, ladies!