Diana,

I was sure I had read something somewhere about breastfeeding protecting
against osteoporosis but all I can find is a study called 'Breastfeeding
and other reproductive factors and the risk of hip fracture in elderly
women'.  This is sort of related, by implication maybe? Anyway, the
researchers - in Australia - looked at women over 65 and they found that
women who had never breastfed had twice the risk of hip fracture than women
who had breastfed.  Apparently, the longer the duration of breastfeeding
for each child, the lower the risk of hip fracture in later life.  Nursing
for longer than 9 months per child reduced risk to one quarter the risk of
not breastfeeding.
Ref: Cummings, RG and Klineberg, RJ. International Journal of Epidemiology,
1993: 2 (4), 684-691.
Could one extrapolate - the women who had the hip fractures might have
had/been developing osteoporosis?  I don't have the original paper here, so
cannot check it out, but it sounds possible to me.  Hope we get some more
on this.

I too have worked with teenage mothers who have had an abundance of milk.
I feel sure (gut feeling only, no evidence) that if they get pregnant and
that system works OK, then the mammary system will also function perfectly
well when it is wanted.  Why ever should age make a difference?  Once upon
a time, girls were 'women' and married at 12 or 13, with babies galore.
OK, so maybe they were dead by 30, but the principle is the same!

I should NOT have said how good the weather was here - today I have been
battling through snow, sleet and high winds to catch wet, cold horses who
did not want to come.  I'm told it is the earliest November snow for 50
years!

Jane Moody, NCT Breastfeeding counsellor/tutor; editor of New Generation
Digest.