Having kids after 30...

By what percentage does it raise your risk of getting bc if you have children after 30? What are the sources for the studies you've read? Are all other factors equal in the lives/ lifestyles of these post-30 mothers who got bc? I, personally, haven't heard that it's a major risk factor ( though it could be that I never looked in to it). Breast feeding is supposed to help reduce bc risk. I breast fed my children and still got bc. I don't think worrying about bc should push you into motherhood before you're ready for it. Caryn

The main risk factor for any type of breast cancer is being female, so we all have to live with it.  Caryn is correct, I wouldn't allow it to push you into a decision that could lead to another set of problems. 

My Aunt had her first child at 18 and her last (the 9th) at 32.  She died of breast cancer at 39.  She had no first degree relatives with any sort of cancer, she never weighed more than 135 lbs, she never used hormonal bc. Her experience convinced me that it's all so random that I don't worry about risk factors.

I have no scientific anything one way or the other but I can tell you what I have observed just here on this website...

Most of the women on this website who have gotten breast cancer are mothers, grandmothers and most breast fed...

There arent many women on this site who arent mothers...

That whole "being a mother reduces your risk factor" line I think personally is more a thought that lulls women into thinking they are "safe" or "safer".

THE biggest factors...being female and getting older.....The others I tend to think are far more minimal than we are lead to believe...

JMO based on my observations... 

What I wish more research would go into is more studies to better understand why women in their 30s get hit with it? Environmental? Exposure to all the different kinds of birth control (not just the pill?). Help getting pregnant?? What???

I know that most BC does show up in older women, but I sure have seen plenty of 30-somethings here enough to wonder "Ok...what is going on here....What are these women exposed to that is making them vulnerable to aggressive BC?" 

Girlguru, the "risk factors" don't always apply, and in this case I don't think it should be part of your decision about when to have children.

According to what I've read, the following are risk factors:

Starting menstruation early, i.e. before age 10. I was 13.

Late menopause. I was 51.

Obesity. I have occasionally been overweight but never with a BMI of over 25.8 (normal weight is considered up to 24.9, obese over 30).

Drinking (don't know amount). I never drank (I don't like the taste of alcohol).

Smoking. I don't smoke.

Having children late (however that's defined). I have 6 kids, had my first when I was 26.

Not breastfeeding. I nursed all my kids for a long time.

Family history. This is where the stats-compilers can yell, GOTCHA!

You do what you can do, live a life with as healthy a lifestyle as you can, and that's all you can do.

Leah

Hi girlguru

I do a lot of reading and research on breast cancer and I have studied estrogen as a whole.  I have looked at the fungal theory, the sugar theory, the dairy theory, had debates on all of them with people. I have looked at geographical theories and I have looked at statistics and date until I am packed to the rafters with information. 

Statistics are purely numbers, the true numbers will never be known.  I could write reams and reams of research I have done and it will not change a thing.  Yet, I still study and read, because I am interested.  My current reading is on necrosis, because that is what I seemingly have.  While it is bengn process, if I look hard enough, I will and I have found papers on fat necrosis, that will lead me to believe that it is not as simple as a benign process and how I am led to believe that it is only that and that I am not on a cancerous route. 

Everything can be argued, because while some studies are proven, and some are not, if it were only estrogen that was the cause, wouldn't there have been some development in cure?  We have no cause, we have no cure, we only have risk factors, and we only have the treatments that we have, which have been proven to reduce tumours, kill off damaged cells and sustain life. 

Chemotherapy is a relatively "new" drug process, only been around since the 70's.  If you look back at history, women had their breasts sliced off because of disease.  Radical masectomies were performed first in the late 1800's (can't remember the date exactly)

If, girlguru, you want to look deeper into it all, then you will have to take yourself right back to when humans first inhabited this planet.  Cancer is such a vexing topic, producing so many theories.  For now, the fungal theory I am looking at, reading it big and large. 

Estrogen alone?  Your question, if you have the time to do the research is a good one, we know that estrogen is a big player in breast and ovarian cancer, men produce estrogen, and get breast cancer, it is rare.  But it happens. 

I believe that younger women developing breast cancer is nothing new. As I said my 39 year old aunt died of bc in 1971. I think women just didn't talk about problems with their lady parts.  My aunt had had her lump from age 25 on and just didn't tell anyone, because, well you didn't talk about these things.  And having ignored a lump when you eventually die the lung problem that killed may well have been rooted in bc.  The headaches?  Same thing.  A young woman was carried off by flu, or polo or who died in childbirth, or maybe just wasted away?... whatever. She may well have been weakend by bc.

 As for most women here being mother's & grandmothers?  Well that's true, but there are a lot of us here who are childless, as well.  We just don't have as much occaision to talk about it.