Late Childbirth Linked to Breast Cancer Risk: Study

Increased breast cancer might last decades after childbirth, the study says.

Women who had their first child after 35 may be at an increased risk of developing breast cancer than their peers who do not have children, according to a study contrary to conventional wisdom that childbirth is protective against breast cancer.

Besides late childbirth, women who had a family history of breast cancer or who had a greater number of births also had an increased risk for breast cancer after childbirth. The pattern looked the same whether or not women breastfed.

While the risk was higher for women who were older at first birth, there was no increased risk of breast cancer after a recent birth for women who had their first child before 25, said researchers from the University of North Carolina (UNC) in the US.