I am 28 years old, I was diagnosed in November 2006 16 weeks after the arrival of my beautiful son. I discovered the “thickening” when he was 6 weeks old, went to the drs for my 8 week check and was told it was a “blocked milk duct”. However I was having lots of pain and was very aware that this was not going away and wanted a 2nd opinion I was then reffered to the hospital. After all the biopsys, tests etc was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was told that my cancer fed off oestrogen I did ask if this was brought on by pregnancy but was told that there was no evidence that there is a link. I have been looking at this forum for the last 2 years and have seen that a lot of women have either very young children or diagnosed whilst pregnant. I am just wondering if anyone else feeld the same as me that pregnancy triggered off this cancer.
Hi Emma
I had been wondering about this not so long ago myself- Im also 28 and had my son last year and was diagnosed this year with BC. I also had a ectopic pregnancy a few months before finding out (and one in 2004). I have been told a few times that they are not related- but like you I did wonder. Im also showing 8/8 for oestrogen. I did not want my eggs frozen as in my head I am too scared to ever try again for a baby in the future and am lucky to have my son. the tricky thing about it all though is it would seem there are women of many ages and different circumstances who have been diagnosed too. Its alot to take in and I think (well I know I did-and still to an extent do) keep looking for a reason this happened
I’ve met / know two other women well with BC, our experience is …
(a) Baby1, 2 years, Baby2 6 months at diagnosis
(b) Baby1, 20 months, 2 months pregnant at diagnosis
(c) Baby1, 2 years, Baby2, 1 year at diagnosis
We all have 8/8 oestrogen positive tumours, breastfed for extended periods, and two of us were still breastfeeding at diagnosis
My onc says that the oestrogen may “feed” the tumour to grow faster, but there’s no evidence it caused it
The link appears to be oestrogen, not pregnancy. I was diagnosed 2 years ago at the age of 47. I have one son who was born when I was 31. I am amongst what is probably the first generation to rely heavily on the pill as a contraceptive. We were told about the risk of clots but no-one ever mentioned the risk of breast cancer. I have also been treated for fibroids which seem to be liked to oestrogen levels. I don’t feel that there is any one cause of breast cancer but possibly a cumulative effect from a number of different things- one of them being the fact that I lived in a smoking household for the first 19 years of my life, and my mother smoked throughout her pregnancy. I certainly don’t feel that my pregnancy was to blame. Besides, i breast fed my son and that is supposed to give some protection against breast cancer.
Hi, When asked by my GP if I breast fed my children(3) and I said no,she looked at me with a shocked look and said"what you didnt breast feed any of them,you know that breast feeding can protect you".Well that made me feel much better(not) and I did beat myself up about it for a while.My youngest was 14 when I was diagnosed with er+ bc.But now I dont look for a reason, I got it and knowing why aint gonna change that LOL.Everyone you ask seems to have a different opinion to what causes it.
I feel there is a defo link. My daughter was 18 mnths when I was dx. My onc didn’t give me a 8/8 scoring on the eostrogen but did say it scored above 200 so i will benefit from tamoxifen significantly. I was only on the pill as a late teanager for achne only and only for about 2 yrs max. I was dx at 34.
i think it has more to do with age at diagnosis than pregnancy status… having babies young is meant to help prevent breast cancer, however more and more women are delaying having babies to late 20s, 30s and now 40s and as the incidence rates of BC are increasing for women in that age group it is going to mean that more women get diagnosed during and after child birth.
that said my mum had me at 21 and got bc at 57 and i had my daughter at 22 and got bc at 37 so there are always exceptions to every rule.
as for the great breastfeeding debate you would need to have breast fed for at least 1 year in your life (all breastfeeding added together) to decrease the risk of getting breast cancer by 3 cases in 1000 (thousand) by age 70, which iuf you compare that to say weight where you would decrease your risk by 3 cases in 100 (hundred) if you were normal weight at age 50 compared to being obese. so being obese means you have 10 times more chance of getting breast cancer than not breast feeding… think you have a very insensitive doctor Melly.
I did maybe think my bc was genetic,but oncologist thinks not,he said it was more than likely just bad luck.I am a couple of stone overweight,perhaps that may be a factor,but having said that my mum was only about seven stone when diagnosed.I now worry about my two daughters 18 and 21.I didn’t want to scare them so just told them that they need to be breast aware,and I gave them leaflets on how to do self examinations.But you know what its like at that age you think your invinsable LOL.
There is a small increase in breast cancer risk after a first pregnancy, but it doesn’t seem to have much to do with hormones.
As I understand it, the breast is undergoes changes during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Up to that point, it is much more susceptible to genetic damage, which is where the association between not having children before 25 comes in. The older a first-time mum is, the long she has had to build up genetic damage. Also, it turns out that there is a much stronger connection between using the pill before having a child and breast cancer than using it after having a child, so the pill may be riskier than stated because it was originally tested on women who already had too many children. Some studies have found a link between being exposed to cigarette smoke when young and pre-menopausal breast cancer, probably because of genetic damage. If a bad genetic change is already present before pregnancy, these changes can progress to breast cancer, although it probably would have happened later anyway.
The studies that have been done of breast cancer that has cropped up during or shortly after pregnancy have found that they tend to be very similar to non-pregnancy related cancers among women of the same age, except that they might be more PR-. I don’t think anyone knows why. They are not overly er-positive.
As for weight, being slim increases the risk of early BC, but cuts it for post-menopausal.
Breastfeeding does have a protective effect, but is of no help if the cancerous change is already present.
My oncologist told me that he did not know why I got cancer when my baby was six months old and since he knows much more than I do, in the end I just left it like that. These are all risk factors, but it isn’t like smoking and lung cancer. Even if I loaded up all my risk factors, the odds of me getting breast cancer would have been a long shot.
I had a miscarriage a year befor bein diagnosed at 29yrs old, and my boobs doubled in size when i was pregnant and then I lost the baby at only 8 weeks and my boobs never went back to the size i was - my friends were all so jealous - but i believe that this had somethin to do with a perhaps blocked milk duct / raised hormones…altho i do have a very strong bc line in my family i am the 5th one in my family - my mum, and 3 aunts both sides of mum and dad have had bc…so it was inevitable but i do always wonder that it was brought on earlier at 29 cos of my miscarriage and hormone change. I am now 35 and have had 6 more tumours - altho the current ones in my lungs are stable thanks to arimidex
Reading this thread had me thinking, I had my first child at 26 and shortly after he was born I developed painful mastitis exactly in the location where my breast tumour was discovered at the age of 31…I cant help but think this is somehow the reason I got BC, its too coincidental that the exact area of infection (which cleared up after antiobiotics) was where the tumour was located…of course the Oncs poo poo the idea but im sticking with it, I was highly PR+ aswell which of course is the main pregnancy hormone.
As Christine says taking the pill seems to have far more risks than they lead us to believe, I was on the Progesterone only pill for 8 years prior to my sons birth and what was my cancer?..highly PR+, sorry but that just reaks of the cause to me.
No matter how many times i bang my head against the oncologists wall with this one they refuse to research it any further…
Hello, I am convinced that in 10 years time there will be a “breakthrough” and will disover that the pill, taking folic acid whilst pregnant, having a abortion, having a miscarriage etc, etc, etc could cause breast cancer.
At the end of the day the number of women being diagnosed whilst or just after pregnancy must show that there is a link.
This is such a sh*t disease and I hate it more than words can describe. All I want is to be left alone to look after my baby (he’s 2 and a half) Its so unfair that there are people out there who don’t give a cr£ap about thier kids yet I spend all day every day begging god to let me see him grow up. I don’t know what the future holds but am quite sure that I will be haunted by this for the rest of my days. It is a bast*rd !
I don’t like to upset anyone, but the vast majority of women have children but the vast majority of women do not end up having breast cancer - I believe the statistics are 1 in 9 women over their lifetime.
I tend to believe that a couple of the many reasons why bc is so much more prevalent now are because a) women are more aware of bc and will seek help - my mother still refuses to have a mammogram as she doesn’t want anyone touching her breasts (she’s 65) and b) regarding hormone sensitive cancers - over the past 30 years the pill has been widely used and is passed back into the water supply - male fertility is also declining - surely this must have something to do with bc.
I’m 28 and I had a missed miscarriage back in June of this year and discovered my lump in July… I was diagnosed with bc in October… I too wondered if there was a link as there is no history of bc in my family.
I was dx when I was pregnant. I spoke to an onc who had made a special study of bc dx in pregnant and new mums, and she could find no link. One in 10,000 pregnancies will have a mum dx with bc.
There are enouthg myths around bc and I do think we should be careful mistaking personal stories and statistical risk. It is very understandable to want to understand why we got cancer, but with pre menopausal women, unless you have strong family history, it is still a rare condition and doctors just dont know.
I’m 37 and first found my lump in July this year. My surgeon misdiagnosed me and said it was a cyst. After receiving this good news, my husband and I decided we wanted to go ahead and try for child number 4. We’re incredibly lucky and have 3 beautiful kids aged 2, 4, and 6. Previous to this though we’ve been to hell and back over the last 10 years with an ectopic pregnancy and several miscarraiges including one very late 1!
I then got called back to the surgeon to be told he wanted to do bi-op on cyst. Long story short, it was the dreaded C and I had to terminate my pregnancy at 9 weeks. This i found was the most traumatic part of this whole sorry mess!
I defo believe that there is a link between pregnancy problems and BC. Why else do some people stroll through life with no struggles at all???
I’ve just had my first FEC about a week ago but I think for me, the hardest thing to come to terms with, is not the cancer (maybe I’m still in denial), but the fact if the chemo doesn’t stop the periods i have to have the menopause bought on by injections and then tamoxofin for 5 years.
As I say, I’m incredibly lucky and I Thank God every day for my kids, it’s them that get me through it all! I realise that some people aren’t so fortunate as me, but some days i feel extremely resentful about other people who don’t have suffer like we are!!
Good luck to everyone still waiting for surgery or having chemo. Here’s hoping that next Christmas will be a happier one for all of us!
