NEW research has found that younger women who have a child may have a higher risk of breast cancer after giving birth than women who do not have children.

Co-led by the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, the new large-scale analysis looked at data from 15 studies carried out around the world and including a total of 889,944 women.

The researchers investigated whether there was an elevated breast cancer risk after childbirth in women younger than 55, as well as taking into account other factors such as whether the women breastfed and a family history of breast cancer.

The results, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, showed that the risk of breast cancer was actually higher around five years after giving birth, and 80 percent higher compared with women who did not give birth.

The finding seems to go against the common belief that childbirth has a protective effect against breast cancer, however the researchers point out that although having a child does seem to protect women against the disease, it can take more than 20 years for these benefits to occur, with the results also showing that it wasn’t until 23 years after giving birth that the risk started to level off.

The risk was also not the same for all women in this age group, with results showing that the increased risk after childbirth was higher for women who also had a family history of breast cancer, or who had given birth to more children, or who had their first child after 35.

(SD-Agencies)