In response to Kathy Lipke's post about a mother nursing twins, taking
fenugreek, and worrying about the risk of breast cancer:

One article I know of found that breast cancer risk was 12% lower in women
who had had a multiple birth compared to mothers of singletons.  Breast
feeding them also helped. (The study looked at 19,368 parous women with
breast cancer diagnosed up to age 65 years, and 100,459 parous controls.
There were 329 cases and 2,031 controls who had at least one live multiple
birth.)

Lambe M et al. "Maternal risk of breast cancer following multiple births: a
nationwide study in Sweden." Cancer Causes and Control.1996; 7:533-538.
(A correction of table 1 on p. 535 of the article appears in a later issue,
but I'm not sure which one).  Anyway, it seems there is another reason to
encourage mothers of multiples to breastfeed.

"...It has been suggested that the risk of breast cancer is reduced by a
longer duration of breast feeding, a larger number of babies breast fed,
and possibly a young age at first lactation.  Protection may be imparted by
interruption of ovulation, modification of ovarian hormone secretion, or
direct physical changes in the breast.  Regardless of the exact mechanism,
it can be hypothesized that a protective effect of lactation, if any, would
be more pronounced in a woman breastfeeding two children simultaneously..."
(p. 537)
Anne Altshuler, RN, MS, IBCLC and LLL leader in Madison, Wisconsin
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