Here's a Daily Telegraph article indicating benefits for the mother, re lowered risk of rheumatoid arthritis, if she breastfeeds her children:-
"Breast is best to fight rheumatoid arthritis
Last Updated: 10:09PM BST 12/05/2008
Women can halve their chance of rheumatoid arthritis by breast-feeding their children for more than a year, researchers have said.
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Charlotte Church took to the streets of Cardiff to encourage young mothers to breast-feed their children
Scientists compared 136 women with rheumatoid arthritis with 544 of a similar age who were free from the disease. They found that those who breast-fed for 13 months or more were 54 per cent less likely to develop the condition as women who had not.
Even women who breast-fed for between one and 12 months were 26 per cent less likely to suffer the disease.
About 400,000 people in Britain have rheumatoid arthritis. The Swedish experts, writing in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, noted that women have more than a twofold higher incidence of rheumatoid arthritis than men.
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"This difference may partly be explained by hormonal factors," they wrote.
The study was published on the day that the singer Charlotte Church backed a Welsh Assembly campaign to encourage young mothers to breast-feed. Miss Church, 21, who breast-fed her eight-month-old daughter Ruby for six months, said she enjoyed bonding with her baby.
"Everybody knows mother's milk is best," she said. "
taken from:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1950072/Breast-is-best-to-fight-rheumatoid-arthritis.htmlGeoff
