Risk of type 2 diabetes fell when women continued to breastfeed after two months and up to two years.
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“Women with a history of GDM are faced with an extremely high risk for type 2 diabetes; up to 50 percent diagnosed within 5 years after delivery”.
Doctors insist that breastfeeding is important both for the infant as well as for the mother, especially if she has GDM and risks to develop type 2 diabetes. In addition, more funding to follow women beyond the two-year period of this study would help to determine how long the protective benefits of lactation last among women who have had a gestational diabetes pregnancy. 12 percent of the participants in the study developed type 2 diabetes in the 2-year study period.
While it only occurs during pregnancy, it increases the risk a woman will go on to develop Type 2 diabetes. The women were divided into five categories: women who were exclusively breastfeeding, exclusively feeding milk formula, mostly breastfeeding, mostly providing milk formula and mothers who provided an equal mix of breast milk and milk formula.
Breast-feeding seems to reset the body’s metabolism after the metabolic chaos of pregnancy, said Dr. Alison Stuebe, an assistant professor of maternal-fetal medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill.
Modification of lactation behaviors to increase intensity and duration should be considered a high priority for pregnant and postpartum women with gestational diabetes mellitus given their lasting metabolic benefits.
Researchers at Kaiser Permanente found that women with gestational diabetes who breastfed from the time they gave birth were able to cut their risk of developing the health issue in half.
“Pregnancy is a metabolic challenge”, Erica P. Gunderson, the study’s lead author, told the NY Times. Higher lactation and longer duration of breastfeeding was associated with progressively lower chances of developing the condition, ranging from a 35 percent to 57 percent reduction in the risk of diabetes.
This finding even held true after accounting for differences between the mothers in terms of education, ethnicity, weight, physical activity, and dietary factors. Seventy-five percent of the women in the study were Asian, Hispanic or of African-American heritage.
The study enrolled more than 1,000 Kaiser Permanente members in Northern California who were diagnosed with gestational diabetes during pregnancy between 2008 and 2011. Women who exclusively formula-fed their infants from six to nine months were twice as likely to get diabetes as those who exclusively breastfed. The results indicate that moms who breastfeed are less likely to develop type 2 diabetes.
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The researchers conducted in-person exams, which included glucose-tolerance tests at 6 to 9 weeks post-delivery to establish baseline readings. “[It should be] part of early diabetes prevention efforts by health care systems”, she said.
