Hi, I'm new to Lactnet, been lurking here for just a few weeks.

Carol asked; if some person whohas the factoids at their fingertips would
post some of the references about bf preventing breast cancer for ease of
citing when smiting people with this knowledge, 

Maybe this will help,
 Magda and I wrote an article for Midwives Journal (due out now) reviewing
some of the research on breastfeeding preventing premenopausal  breast
cancer - see Magda's earlier note. We wanted to find some facts that would
be useful to women. The study that considered the seperate effects of
breastfeeding per months per child was Chilvers et al, Breastfeeding and
risk of breast cancer in young women:UK National Case-Control Study Group,
Br Med J 317:542(1993).  

The relative risk per baby was 0.78 (CI 0.66-0.92) translated as 22%
reduction in risk per child breastfed for more than 3 months. Another
useful fact might be - comparing the two groups of women (cases, with
premenopausal breast cancer v controls) the control group had 1% more women
breastfeeding one child for at least 3 months and 2% breastfeeding two
babies for at least 3 months, so if 100 women breastfed one child for at
least 3 months there would be 1 less case of premenopausal breast cancer,
this 'number needed to prevent' drops to 50 when each woman breastfeeds two
babies for at least 3 months. 

This is without comparing style of breastfeeding or age of introducing
solids which must make a difference.

It would be great if someone could check our figures but we think this is
something long needing publicised, once in print,  we can send our article.

Phyll  Buchanan
Breastfeeding Supporter
The Breastfeeding Network, Wokingham (near Reading, UK)