Ongoing research increasingly demonstrates that women who do not breastfeed have poorer health outcomes over time compared to women who breastfeed. Breastfeeding is associated with a lower risk of breast and ovarian cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes. These are all leading causes of illness and death among US women.

It is known that people have reasonable awareness of the benefits of breastfeeding for infants, but public awareness of the importance of breastfeeding for the mother has not been well studied.

This week’s research study evaluated data collected by Porter Novelli SummerStyles, an online marketing survey that collects opinions about health. The survey, sent randomly around the country in 2018 and 2021, asked 3 questions about the benefits of breastfeeding as follows: ‘If a mother breastfeeds her baby, she may be less likely to develop [breast cancer, high blood pressure, or type 2 diabetes] later in her life’. The participant could select agree (somewhat agree/strongly agree), neutral (neither agree or disagree), and disagree (somewhat disagree/strongly disagree).

The survey also collected data on race, ethnicity, gender, age, education, household income, employment status, marital status, and region in the county.

There were approximately 8100 participants combined from both the 2018 and 2021 surveys. The researchers found that 23.9% agreed that breastfeeding reduces the risk of breast cancer, 16% agreed that breastfeeding protects from high blood pressure, and 15.4% agreed that breastfeeding protects from type 2 diabetes. These results did not differ from 2018 to 2021.

What else? See the question!