Recent study revealed that women with a family history of breast cancer can reduce their risk of premenopausal breast cancer by breastfeeding a baby foe three months. The recent study offers a simple way for women with women with at least one close relative with breast cancer to protect themselves from breast cancer.

Research team led by Alison Stuebe, MD, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill analyzed data collecte4d 60,075 women who were participants in the Nurses' Health Study II from 1997 to 2005 and had given birth. By 2005 women 608 were diagnosed with breast cancer.

The study subjects were asked to fill questioners containing questions regarding demographics, body measurements, and lifestyle factors, their breastfeeding practices and family history of breast cancer every two years.

Data analysis revealed that study subjects who had breastfed were 25% less likely to develop premenopausal breast cancer as compared to women who had never breastfed.

It was also found that in study subjects with a family history of breast cancer, those who had breastfed had a 60% reduced risk for premenopausal breast cancer compared to those who never breastfed.

Stuebe says that the risk reduction for women with a family history of breast cancer who breastfeed is comparable to that found in high-risk women who take hormonal treatments such as tamoxifen.