Women breastfeed babies during a mass event in Athens November 2, 2014. Hundreds of women gathered and fed babies in public to raise awareness among young mothers on the practice at the beginning of the annual World Breastfeeding Week.
IN PHOTO: Women breastfeed babies during a mass event in Athens November 2, 2014. Hundreds of women gathered and fed babies in public to raise awareness among young mothers on the practice at the beginning of the annual World Breastfeeding Week. REUTERS/Yorgos Karahalis (GREECE - Tags: POLITICS SOCIETY) TEMPLATE OUT

Breastfeeding can help lower the risk of developing leukaemia in children, a new study suggests. In the new study, researchers have shown that there is a 19 percent lowered risk of childhood leukaemia seen in children who were breastfed for more than six months.

Lead author of the recent report found in JAMA Paediatrics Efrat Amitay said that the causes of childhood leukaemia remain unknown. “There have been all kinds of hypotheses about it, and one of the things that emerged in the research is breastfeeding,” he said in a report from Time.

In the Monday published study, Amitay and a team of researchers from the University of Haifa and the Israel Centre for Disease Control analysed 18 studies focusing on breastfeeding and childhood leukaemia, which is the common type of cancer seen in children. Time reports that there were over 10,000 cases of childhood leukaemia analysed and over 17,000 of them served as controls.

The study found that children who were breastfed for six months and up had 19% lowered risk for childhood leukaemia than children who were not breastfed or breastfed for only less than six months.

Los Angeles Times reports that leukaemia cases have been increasing steadily for several years. In the U.S., cases have grown by 0.7 percent per year on average from 1975 to 2011, while in Europe cases have increased by 0.6 percent per year on average from 1978 to 1997.

Scientists are unsure what accounts for the rise in childhood leukaemia cases but they are considering the possibility of the Greaves hypothesis, an idea that a genetic mutation during pregnancy renders the child vulnerable to the condition and the presence of an “infective agent” encourages the start of cancer growth, as explained in the report from LA Times.

Although many previous studies have been conducted to show the benefits of breastfeeding, the new study only found that there is a connection between breastfeeding and the possible reduced childhood leukaemia risk. CBS reports that the study design doesn’t prove that breastfeeding caused the lowered risk.

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