For every quarter spent breastfeeding, women see their risk reduced by 8%. Partly thanks to the interruption of the rules that breastfeeding prolongs.
Between 10 and 15% of women suffer from endometriosis. The disease causes severe pain in the abdomen and lower abdomen during menstruation. As the origin is not well known, the various treatments offered rarely allow a definitive cure, and it is difficult to prevent it.
But a team from Harvard University has found something that appears to significantly lower the risk of developing endometriosis. They found that breastfeeding significantly prevented its onset.
Exclusive breastfeeding is more effective
It is by using the data of a large prospective cohort inaugurated in 1989, the Nurses’ Health Study II, that the American researchers obtained this interesting result, that they publish in the journal BMJ.
This brings together more than 72,000 women who have had a pregnancy. Of these, nearly 3,300 also had a confirmed diagnosis (after surgery) of endometriosis. The follow-up of these women included, among other things, data on the breastfeeding of children after childbirth, or on the duration of amenorrhea (interruption of menstruation) after pregnancy.
Linking this data to cases of endometriosis, scientists observed that for every trimester of breastfeeding in a woman’s life, the chances of developing endometriosis decreased by an average of 8%. And the months of exclusive breastfeeding are more profitable: the risk reduction goes from 8 to 14%.
Up to 40% less risk
By taking the extreme cases of women who have never breastfed and those who have breastfed for more than three years in their life – whether the duration counts for one or more children – the risk is even reduced by 40%! The association is therefore clear, and particularly strong.
“In view of the chronic nature of endometriosis and the few known risk factors on which we can act, breastfeeding could be an important lever to reduce the risk in women after their pregnancy”, considers Leslie Farland, epidemiologist and researcher in gynecology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard University, and lead author of the study.
A potential link with amenorrhea
The researchers do not fully explain the association between breastfeeding and risk reduction, but still suggest a hypothesis. Their observations show that part of the benefit could be due to the amenorrhea that follows the end of a pregnancy, due to hormonal changes. This is indeed often prolonged by breastfeeding, especially when it is exclusive. But it does not explain everything.
Researchers therefore support the current trend which promotes the benefits of breastfeeding on the health of the baby, but also on that of the mother. They now want to see if, in addition to reducing the risk of developing endometriosis, breastfeeding can also reduce the symptoms in women who already have it.
Endometriosis: delocalized rules
The endometrium is the tissue that lines the inside of the uterus. During the menstrual cycle, and under the action of hormones, this tissue develops to allow the reception of a possible embryo, then is destroyed and eliminated if no pregnancy is initiated. The strongly vascularized tissue, when it is evacuated, then constitutes the loss of “blood” observed during the rules.
In women with endometriosis, endometrial cells are found elsewhere than in the uterus. They can be located on the ovaries, but also on other organs of the abdomen, without science being able to explain it yet.
Several hypotheses are put forward to explain the phenomenon. The main theory is based on the reflux of blood during menstruation. During menstruation, the blood sometimes flows back to the tubes and reaches the abdominal cavity carrying the endometrial cells. But if this explanation is not fully satisfactory, it is because 90% of women would have this kind of retrograde bleeding, while they would be 5 to 10 times less likely to suffer from endometriosis.
.
