Mums who breastfeed for six months or more reduce risk of diabetes

A new study analysed 30 years of data.

According to new research, mothers who breastfeed for at least six months reduce the risk of developing diabetes by almost half. The new US research looked at 5,000 adults between the ages of 18 and 30 and found that mums who breastfed for at least six months or more were 47 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes in comparison to mums who didn’t breastfeed at all. The 30 years of data analysed in the US investigation found a “very strong association” between the length of time mums breastfed and the chances of them developing diabetes. The findings, published in the Jama Internal Medicine journal, have become the latest to highlight the protective benefits of breastfeeding for mum and baby.

“We found a very strong association between breastfeeding duration and lower risk of developing diabetes, even after accounting for all possible confounding risk factors,” lead investigator Dr Erica Gunderson said of the research. “The incidence of diabetes decreased in a graded manner as breastfeeding duration increased, regardless of race, gestational diabetes, lifestyle behaviours, body size, and other metabolic risk factors measured before pregnancy, implying the possibility that the underlying mechanism may be biological.”