The Farmer's Market and MORE Breast Cancer Awareness Advocacy

I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who helped out with the Farmer's Market today.  We sold a few items, gave away a few bags to pregnant women (or people who knew them) and helped to spread awareness of our cause in Central Florida.... plus I got to spend a few hours outside during an absolutely gorgeous morning...

Seriously, it was a big success!  :)

I wanted to pop on here and remind people that we have beautiful handmade items for gifts.  Baby showers, Christmas presents, birthday gifts -- we have gorgeous, handmade burp cloths, bibs, blankets and onesies at fabulous prices.  Many of our items match and most can be custom-ordered (if you see a design and would like a matching blanket, bib, etc for a set).  Everything is handmade locally and almost everything is donated.  If you are interested, please let me know.  I can give you a list of places where we'll be or I can meet you somewhere and show you what we have in stock.

Thank you to everyone for your support.  Without our wonderful volunteers, supporters and cheerleaders, we wouldn't be able to accomplish our goals.

So, now I'll leave with another little factoid about breastfeeding...  We already mentioned that multiple studies have shown that breastfeeding reduces the risk of breast cancer in moms... did you know that it also decreases the risk for it in girls who were breastfed as infants?

Women who were breastfed as infants, even if only for a short time, showed an approximate 25% lower risk of developing premenopausal or postmenopausal breast cancer, compared to women who were bottle-fed as an infant.
Source:  Freudenheim, J. "Exposure to breast milk in infancy and the risk of breast cancer."  Epidemiology 1994 5:324-331

Some other food for thought as this is Breast Cancer Awareness Month...  Help Prevent Breast Cancer -- BREASTFEED!

A study by Yale University researchers showed that women who breastfed for two years or longer reduced their risk of breast cancer by 50 percent.

Among both premenopausal and postmenopausal women, risk of breast cancer decrease with increasing duration of lifetime lactation experience although the effect was consistently stronger for premenopausal women.
Source:  McTieman, A., "Evidence of Protective Effect of Lactation on Risk of Breast Cancer in Young Women."  American Journal of Epidemiology, 1986

After controlling for age at first full term pregnancy and other potentially compounding factors, parity and duration of breast feeding also had a strong influence on the risk of breast cancer. Compared with parous women who never breast fed, women who had breast fed for 25 months or more had a lower relative risk.
Source:  Layde, P.M., "The Independent Associations of Parity Age at First full Term Pregnancy, and Duration of Breast Feeding with the Risk of Breast Cancer."  Journal of Clinical Epidemiol, 1989.

If women who do not breastfeed or who breastfed for less than 3 months were to do so for 4 to 12 months, breast cancer among parous premenopausal women could be reduce by 11%; if all women with children lactated for 24 months or longer, the incidence might be reduced by nearly 25%.
Source:  Newcomb,P. etal. "Lactation and reduced risk of premenopausal breast cancer."  N Engl J Med 1994; 330(2):81-87.

An increasing duration of lactation was associated with a statistically significant trend toward a reduced risk of breast cancer.
Sources:  Newcomb, P.A. et al. 1994 Lactation and a reduced risk of premenopausal breast cancer.  The New England Journal of Medicine 330(2):81-87. (P Byers T, et al. Lactation and breast cancer: evidence for a negative association in premenopausal women.  American Journal of Epidemiology Vol 121, pp664-74, 1985)

Siskind V, et al. Breast cancer and breastfeeding: results from and Australian case-control study.  American Journal of Epidemiology, Vol 130, pp229-36, 1989