Recently pregnant women are more likely to develop breast cancer, study finds

Women who were recently pregnant have a higher risk of developing breast cancer compared to women who have never given birth, a study has found.

The study analysed the breast cancer diagnoses of more than 17,000 women from the US, Canada and Australia, and found that recent childbirth increased a woman's chance of developing breast cancer.

The risk of developing breast cancer peaked at five years after the last full-term pregnancy and delivery, the study found.

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The joint study involving University of New South Wales, the University of Melbourne and the Columbia University Irving Medical Centre used a predicted absolute risk score (PARS) to determine the risk of developing breast cancer.

Women with higher risk scores were 1.5 times more likely to develop breast cancer after giving birth, compared to women who had never given birth with similar risk scores.

The risk was even greater for women with a family history of breast cancer, who had given birth recently.

Women who had never given birth with higher risk scores could go more than 20 years before a breast cancer diagnosis, the study found.

The study did not find any association between breastfeeding and increased cancer risk.

The authors of the study said future research needed to focus on the implications of these findings for at-risk women.