Apr 10
12
Pregnancy and Breast Cancer Survivors
We all know that breast cancer is often fueled by changes in estrogen levels. We actually have a few different types of estrogen levels, and it hasn’t exactly been determined what is a “safe” level of this female hormone. However, excessive or highly fluctuating levels of estrogen have been linked to increases in breast cancer incidence. For this reason, it is thought that many women going through change of life get breast cancer, since they are experiencing unusual and volatile fluctuations in their estrogen and testosterone levels.
We do know that there are a lot of lifestyle factors that can help us as women to avoid the pitfalls of increasing out risk of breast cancer. It has often been questioned if younger women who are diagnosed with breast cancer and have survived it, are safe to get pregnant. Pregnancy, as you well know, carries with it a huge risk of hormone fluctuation, and certainly carries it’s share of risks for the estrogen hormones to be going up and down and out of control.
Shoot, women can have fluctuating hormones several times of month depending on their cycles, but pregnancy and periods are two of the “events” that can cause the hormones to really skyrocket and cause problems. It’s not just moodiness, it’s a whole host of other chemical reactions within the body that occur when the hormones are out of balance, in both men and women, who both have female and male hormones circulating in their body.
The new studies that address the pregnancy and breast cancer death myth (that you are at higher risk of dying from breast cancer if you survived it and subsequently had children), have found that there is no link between pregnancy and dying from breast cancer.
In fact, even in women who have not had breast cancer, some studies have shown a correlation between pregnancy and breast cancer protection. Of course, this is in a whole different demographic, but still…..
The lesson? Women who have survived breast cancer probably should not let this stop them from getting pregnant. Even though it’s not a 100% conclusion, scientists say it looks like there is no direct correlation.
