Abstract
Recently, there has been growing interest in understanding the ways in which lactation affects maternal health. The accompanying article by Palmer et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2015;181(12):932-939), particularly their finding that prepregnancy obesity modifies the relationship between lactation and postpartum weight gain, makes an important contribution to this field. In this commentary, I discuss these findings within the context of other recent literature which indicates that whether or not a mother breastfeeds her newborn appears to be a powerful predictor of the mother's future risk of developing diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease, independent of maternal weight or body mass index in later life.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 940-943 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | American Journal of Epidemiology |
Volume | 181 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs |
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State | Published - Jan 1 2015 |
Keywords
- breastfeeding
- cardiovascular disease
- lactation
- maternal health
- obesity
- visceral adiposity
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Epidemiology