Breastfeeding Impact on Cancer in Women: A Systematic Review

Introduction Many studies have emphasized the impact of breastfeeding on the health of both the mother and the infant, especially its impact on the different types of cancers that can develop in the mother. Due to the ongoing conflict regarding whether or not breastfeeding reduces, increases, or has no impact on the risk of cancer, this systematic review was conducted to settle this conflict and shed light on the issue. Methods The CINAHL, PubMed/MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and EMBASE databases were thoroughly searched to identify any studies published in the English Language up to November 25th, 2023.

Results Out of the initial 170 papers the systematic search brought, 16 of them met all the criteria and were left to be included in the study. A sum of 29,100 patients were included in the study with 19,905 of them having breastfed. A total of 14,817 patients were developing different types of cancer and within them, breast cancer was the most frequent.

Furthermore, there seemed to be a majority association between breastfeeding and cancer in the mother as most of the studies concluded that breastfeeding is observed to decrease the risk. Conclusion The majority of studies support the hypothesis that breastfeeding and breastfeeding duration both lower the risk of cancer, especially breast cancer, developed in the mother.