Nurses Warn Of New Pregnancy Threat
March 27th 2006
Growing numbers of pregnant women are discovering they have breast cancer, nurses have warned. Two or three hundred women a year in Britain will get the diagnosis after becoming pregnant, a conference has been told.
The figures were reported by Catherine Jack, Macmillan lecturer at Leeds University, UK, to a nursing research conference in York, UK.
She said about three per cent of the 8,000 women diagnosed annually with pre-menopausal breast cancer were pregnant.
She said: "With more women delaying childbearing, and the fact that breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, we are likely to see even more women with pregnancy-associated breast cancer in the future.
"This is a real double whammy for women as it’s a unique combination of two major life events.
"They may feel even more isolated as there’s a lack of research about women’s experiences in this area. The challenge for the health profession is treating these women as a distinct group with specific needs compared to other women with breast cancer."
Rebecca Coles, aged 40, from West Sussex, UK, told how she was diagnosed when she was 30 weeks pregnant. She underwent chemotherapy before the birth of her daughter.
Mrs Coles - who has set up a support group for women - said: "I had lots of support but no-one I could really identify with.
"Older women with cancer whom I met wanted to see their grandchildren grow up - I just wanted to see my daughter’s first birthday. The thought that I might die and my children would grow up and not remember me was overwhelming."
Meanwhile a second study published today advocates weight training as a way of helping women recover from breast cancer treatment.
The report, to be published in the journal Cancer, on May 1, says a programme of weights led to improvement in physical and mental health.
Some 86 women were studied at the Unniversity of Minnesota, USA.
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