St. George Magazine Article July 2012

What can you do during your 20’s and 30’s to reduce your Chances of Breast Cancer?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, breast cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer among American women. Less than 0.5 percent of women will get breast cancer before age 39. Your 20’s and 30’s are prime time for preventative measures to help keep your risk as low as possible continuing into your 40’s and beyond. Here are things you can control to help keep your risk low:

• Maintain a healthy weight. Staying trim doesn't just look good-it helps reduce your risk of breast cancer. Excess fat can increase the amount of estrogen your body produces which can increase your chances of breast cancer.
• Watch your alcohol intake to no more than one drink per day.  Three drinks per day increases your rate by 50%
• Consider avoiding soy. There is conflicting evidence about whether soy increases your chances of breast cancer due to its pseudo-estrogenic effect. It might be better just to avoid it until we know more.
• Consider a non- hormonal birth control method. The available data about hormonal contraceptives containing estrogen, suggests a slightly increased risk, so consider whether the benefits of the pill outweigh the risk of taking it. If you have a family history of breast cancer, for example, you may want to choose a different form of birth control.
• Have a baby if that is something you would like to do. Women who have a child before the age of 30 have a slightly lower chance of breast cancer. Your breasts complete their development after a first pregnancy, which makes them less sensitive to carcinogens, or cancer-causing substances.

·         Breastfeed your babies. Research shows that your breast cancer risk is reduced by 7% with each baby and another 4.3% for each 12 months she breastfeeds.  If you have a family history of invasive premenopausal breast cancer nursing your baby can reduce your risk by as much as 60%

• Check out your family history. The biggest risk for breast cancer is genetics. If you have certain genetic mutations, called BRCA1 or BRCA2, you're at much higher risk for developing the disease. 20 to 30 % of women with this gene will develop breast cancer by the age of 40 and 50% will by the age of 50. A simple but expensive blood test, $3,100, can tell you if you are a carrier. There are also significant emotional and psychological consequences of testing to consider as well as the risk of discrimination by insurance companies if you do have the genetic abnormality so keep those in mind.
• Consider getting a breast thermography exam which takes a Digital Infrared Image of your breast. It is based on the principle that metabolic activity and vascular circulation in both pre-cancerous tissue and the area surrounding a developing breast cancer is almost always higher than in normal breast tissue. They compare the image from year to year and it can help detect breast cancer much earlier than a traditional mammogram. A thermography exam does not replace a mammogram for those of the appropriate risk group or age range but it can provide even more information about the health of your breast tissue.

DyAnna Gordon BS,CPM,LDEM is a Southern Utah native, wife and mother of four and  a Licensed Certified Professional Midwife serving Southern Utah and providing homebirth and birth suite services as well as herbal and nutritional counseling, and breast feeding support.

Why Midwives are Fat

Ok. Maybe that is a generalization. There is the occasionally sleek and statuesque midwife. But they are most likely able to also pull off the long grey hair and braless hippy theme as well. This is not the majority of midwives I know. Here are some of my observations about why many (including me) midwives are on the plumper side.

•   Who as a laboring woman wants to lean into a bony shoulder? As a child I had one grandmother who was 92 pounds soaking wet and another who was tipping the scales at 200 pounds. Whose lap do you think I gravitated to? It is a no-brainer.

• Most midwives have had babies themselves, and often many of them. Most midwives I know have had at least four kids and eight is not uncommon. Regardless of good genes and exercise carrying around and caring for all of those babies does something to your waist line.

• Can anyone say adrenaline? Being a midwife is all about the adrenaline rush, ok maybe that isn’t all it is about, but it is surprising how quick you feel the need for another “birth fix”. All of those shots of adrenaline do something to your system. Adrenal fatigue anyone?

• We often don’t have control over what we eat. We have all been at a birth, a long birth think 24 hours plus, when all there is in the cupboard is Coco Crispies. So that is what you eat for five meals in a row. Or you don’t eat. Neither is good for your metabolism.

• We often don’t get to choose when we eat. Last night we had a five day old newborn in the ER so where were my second midwife friend and I at midnight? At Maverick stocking up on Icee’s and soda and crème filled cupcakes hoping our cold infested bodies would not fail us and we would make it through the night as our client’s support system and advocates. Followed by Rescue Remedy, echinecea, and Vitamin B6 of course.

• Any exercise routine we establish is soon shot to pot by an overnight birth (or two or three in a row) and a baby that is feeling abandoned so he won’t let you put him down for a week.

• The last thing a pregnant woman wants is for her husband to be checking out her hot midwife. Enough said!

• You have no circadian rhythms. After I have been up all night at a birth I need three hours of uninterrupted sleep right when I get home. And maybe a 30 minute nap later in the day and I am good. If that doesn’t tell your body that it is stressed and it needs to hold on to all the nutrients it can nothing will.

• We have repetitive injuries caused by assisting at births that make it difficult to exercise. I know my wrists will never be the same after the close to hundreds of hours I have spent doing hip squeezes. How does that look for my racquetball game?

• We have to have large breasts so we can adequately demonstrate how to easily position the breast for nursing and how an over weight (or pregnant) person can indeed do a full squat with our heels flat on the floor.

No am I always happy with the extra few pounds I carry around. No. I try to eat healthy and I exercise regularly but sometime you just have to love what God gave you.