Practically everyone knows that breast feeding is optimal for a baby’s health, and many researchers have suggested that there are some advantages of breast feeding for mom, too. For example, some research indicates that breastfeeding mothers could have a lower risk of ovarian cancer, breast cancer and type 2 diabetes. One of the most immediate benefits of breast feeding for mothers includes post-natal weight loss, which experts suggest is due to the additional calories required for a woman to produce breast milk.

However, a new study is indicating that these benefits extend even further than post-pregnancy weight loss. In fact, the study shows that women who breast feed during motherhood are more likely to have a healthier body weight decades later, even into their 50s and 60s.

1% Drop in BMI for Every 6 Months of Breast Feeding

In the study conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford in England, it was discovered that women who bore children typically had higher Body Mass Indexes (BMIs) than women who never had children, even many years after child-bearing years.

However, the researchers also discovered that moms who breast fed kept their BMIs down by .22 for every 6 months of doing so, even beyond the age of 50. A .22 drop in BMI is equivalent to a 1% drop in BMI. In other words, if you breast feed for a total of 2.5 years, you could expect your BMI to be 5% lower than another mom who didn’t breast feed at all.

Cheryl Lovegood, a breast feeding expert and nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina who was not involved in the study, said that breast feeding burns approximately 500 calories per day. This means that moms who breast feed will lose approximately 1 pound per week by doing so if they don’t increase their caloric intake to compensate. This is roughly equivalent to going for an intense 40-minute run, seven days a week.

About the Study

In order to conduct their study, Kirsty Bobrow and a team of other researchers from the University of Oxford examined the health data of almost 741,000 women who participated in the Million Women study, a large-scale survey involving women from Scotland and England conducted between the years of 1996 and 2001. The average age of the women involved in the study was 57.5.

The women in this advantages of breast feeding study reported the number of children they had, their BMI, the amount of time they spent breast feeding, their smoking habits, their physical activity patterns, and other factors that could affect their body weight.

88% of the women reported having a minimum of one child. 70% of the women in this group said that they breast fed. The average woman in the study engaged in breast feeding for an average of 3 months per child.

The researchers quickly discovered that women in the study who breast fed had lower BMIs than women who did not, given the same number of children per woman. They also said that the more children a woman had, the more likely she was to have done at least some breast feeding.

Breast Feeding: Important for Mommy’s Health, Too?

Dr. Lovegood says that losing weight is very important to a woman’s health after she gives birth. This is especially true in the first six months after birth. If you don’t lose the weight right away, you’re more likely to continue carrying it through the rest of your life, said Lovegood. She also noted that women who are unable to breast feed, or those who simply choose not to, may have to work harder to lose weight after giving birth.

Breast feeding provides other benefits than mere calorie burning. Some of these benefits include the following:

• Hormone regulation

• Reduced risk of ovarian cancer

• Reduced risk of breast cancer

At the same time, the simple benefit of weight loss is enough to make breast feeding worthwhile for moms, regardless of the fact that it hugely benefits the baby. For example, increasing your BMI by just 1% also increases your risk of dying from any cause by 1%. According to the study, breast feeding for 3 years would lower your chance of dying from any cause by 6%.

Advantages of Breast Feeding: The Bottom Line

Researchers from the University of Oxford have discovered that every six months of breast feeding is equivalent to a 1% decrease in Body Mass Index. This benefit continues well after child-bearing years, into a woman’s 50s and even 60s.

The full text of the study is available online in the International Journal of Obesity.