Women giving birth later face lower risk of womb cancer

Mothers who have their children earlier are less likely to suffer from complications during the pregnancy. However, a new study has found giving birth later has its advantages, The Daily Mail reported.

Researchers have found that women who have their last baby when they are 40 or older have a 44 per cent decreased risk of developing womb cancer than those who have their children by the age of 25. They added that this protective effect continued for decades after.

A team from the University of Southern California found the risk begins to decrease after age 30 by around 13 per cent for each five-year delay in last births.

Compared to women who last give birth before age 25, those who have their last child between age 30 and 34 reduce their risk by 17 per cent and those between age 35 and 39 reduce their risk by 32 per cent.

Study leader Dr Veronica Setiawan said: “The size of this study definitively shows that late age at last birth is a significant protective factor after taking into account other factors known to influence the disease - body weight, number of kids and oral contraceptive use.”
 

The study, believed to be the largest of its kind, examined pooled data from four cohort studies and 13 case-control studies.
Funded by the National Cancer Institute, the research examined a total of 8,671 cases of endometrial (womb) cancer and around twice as many control subjects.

Dr Setiawan said: 'We found that the lower risk of endometrial cancer continued for older mothers across different age-at-diagnosis groups, including under 50, 50-59, 60-69, and over 70 - which shows that the protection persists for many years.

“Protection also did not vary by the two types of the disease: the more common Type 1, which we think is related to estrogen exposure; and the more rare, but more aggressive and deadly, Type 2, which have been thought to develop independent of hormones.”