To the editor: This is just one more article about a study that fails to report and inform women on statistically significant ways to reduce their risk of breast cancer (“When should you get a mammogram? We sift through the conflicting advice,” May 19). It is well known medically that the simple act of giving birth reduces breast cancer risk by 7% per baby. But there is another well-researched risk reduction method that is not well known and is well within most individual women’s control after having a child.
For every year of breastfeeding a woman completes, her lifetime risk of breast cancer goes down by 4.3%. Breastfeeding just two children for two years each (a minimal duration recommended by the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics) gives that mother a 17.2% reduction in breast cancer risk. This, combined with the act of giving birth twice, gives a total risk reduction of 31.2%.
Women should be well informed on methods of prevention/risk reduction, rather than just discovery after the fact.
Chele Marmet, Los Angeles