PAST research has shown that mother’s milk is good for a baby but a new United States study says breastfeeding benefits mums, too.

The progressive study of 140,000 American women from the mid-1990s showed that thosewho had breastfed their children for over a year were 9 per cent less likely to get heart diseases.

This was so even 35 years after they stopped breastfeeding.

The results, said the researchers, might be explained by how breastfeeding could better control the mother’s sugar and cholesterol levels, or that breastfeeding women lead healthier lifestyles.

Doctors in Singapore said the study, published in May’s edition of the Obstetrics & Gynecology journal, could be the first to make an association between heart health and breastfeeding.

Senior consultant Yong Tze Tein of the obstetrics-and-gynaecology department at Singapore General Hospital told my paper that more health-care professionals here should now encourage mothers to breastfeed, considering the benefits to their heart which could last well into old age, as suggested by the study.

But there are some caveats to the research results. Dr Yvonne Ng, a consultant at the department of neonatology at the National University Hospital, said finding an association “is not the same as saying breastfeeding causes a reduction in these illnesses”.

Still, the new finding adds to the list of possible health benefits of breastfeeding, like helping babies resist infection and reducing the risk of breast and ovarian cancer in mothers.

Mrs Angeline Wee-Yew, president of the Breastfeeding Mothers’ Support Group in Singapore, added that “breastfeeding also encourages bonding between mother and child”.

Mothers who are still breastfeeding,like human-resource professional Louise Wong, were motivated by the new findings.

“For mothers who are undecided on breastfeeding, the study could give them more reason to consider it,” said the 31-year-old mother of two girls, aged eight months and two.

For more my paper stories click here.