It is important to note that duration of breastfeeding, the longer a mother breastfeeds in her life (one or more babies and the collective number of months), significantly impacts her risk for breast cancer; the protective effect of
lactation on breast cancer risk is cumulative.
Enabling women to breastfeed is also a public health priority because,
on a population level, interruption of
lactation is associated with adverse health outcomes for the woman and her child, including higher maternal
risks of
breast cancer, ovarian
cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease, and greater infant
risks of infectious disease, sudden infant death syndrome, and metabolic disease (2, 4).