Women who take a daily multivitamin before and during pregnancy sharply reduce the likelihood that their children will develop leukemia, brain tumors and other forms of childhood cancer, according to new Canadian research. Taking multivitamins and folic acid during your pregnancy can greatly lower the risk of the mother’s baby developing cancer by almost 50 percent. This new study was done from Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children.

The research should encourage mothers greatly to take multivitamins and folic acid during pregnancy as it is a simple solution which can reap huge rewards.

The study found that a regime of multivitamins and folic acid helped lower the chance of a baby developing a brain tumor by 27 percent, leukemia by 39 percent and neroblastoma by 49 percent. These are some huge numbers for just taking a simple vitamin every say.

Doctors in the study stated that only 40 percent of Canadian mothers took multivitamins which are highly accessible and cheap.

Women whose mothers took a common pregnancy drug are at risk of early menopause, research shows. A study of thousands of women revealed that those who were exposed to the ‘wonder drug’ DES in the womb were 50 per cent more likely to start the menopause early.

The discovery adds to the horrific legacy of the anti-miscarriage drug, which has already been linked to a string of health problems.

The mothers-to-be who took it are at increased risk of breast cancer, and research published last week revealed the deadly legacy has been passed onto the daughters, who have double the risk of the disease.

Routinely prescribed to pregnant women from the 1940s to 1970s, the side-effects of DES or diethylstil-boestrol turned out to so devastating it was dubbed the ’silent Thalidomide’ (after the morning sickness drug which left thousands of babies handicapped).

An estimated 200,000 women in the UK took DES, a synthetic form of the female sex hormone oestrogen. It was withdrawn in the Seventies after studies showed it had lasting effects on the children.

As the DES daughters grew up, many developed cancers of the vagina and other disorders of the reproductive system which made them infertile. The sons had low sperm counts and undescended testicles, and it is thought they might be at increased risk of testicular cancer.

Studies have shown that mothers and daughters both have an increased risk of breast cancer, with the risk increasing with age.

For instance, DES daughters over 40 have almost twice the usual risk of developing the disease. The latest study is the first to look at whether exposure to DES, which was also known as Stilbeostrol, affected a woman’s reproductive life.

The Boston University researchers compared the age of menopause of 4,800 ‘DES daughters’ with that of more 2,100 women whose mothers had not taken the drug. The DES daughters were 50 per cent more likely to have reached menopause early. And

the more DES their mothers had taken, the greater the risk. Worst affected were those whose mothers had taken part in a DES trial in the Fifties — these women were twice as likely to have reached menopause as others their age.

THE increased risk, the American Journal of Epidemiology reports, is thought to be because DES reduces the number of immature eggs produced as the unborn baby develops in the womb.

Baby girls are usually born with up to two million eggs but by the time they reach menopause all but 1,000 or so have withered away. If DES daughters have fewer eggs to begin with, they might reach menopause earlier.

Lead researcher Professor Julie Palmer, who has studied the effects of DES for 14 years, said: ‘Every woman who knows she is DES exposed should be having careful screening for vaginal cancer.

‘Women should also approach their GPs about extra screening for breast cancer.’

The Department of Health advises anyone with a family history of DES to ask their doctor for more frequent cancer screening.

Source: Daily Mail

Pregnant women with breast cancer can be safely treated with a common chemotherapy combination during both the second and third trimesters, researchers report.

The majority of babies will not experience significant short-term complications linked to maternal treatment, they added.

“Further follow-up of the children is required to determine the potential long-term effects of this exposure,” wrote researchers at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston. “However, our short-term data are reassuring.”

The study was published in the Aug. 7 online edition of Cancer.

As women have babies later in life, experts have hypothesized that more women will be diagnosed with breast cancer while they are pregnant. However, there’s little data on how chemotherapy might affect a child in utero.

To help answer that question, the Texas team undertook a trial involving 57 pregnant breast cancer patients. All were treated with a common chemotherapy protocol (FAC or 5-fluorouracil, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide) either after surgery or before surgery. More than one-third (35.1 percent) of the women underwent surgery in their second trimester, while 33.3 percent had surgery after delivery. Most of the women were diagnosed with advanced-stage breast cancer.

Of the original group of women, 40 are now alive and disease-free, three have had recurrences of breast cancer, 12 died of the disease, one died of other causes and one was lost to follow-up.

All women who delivered had live births; there were no stillbirths or miscarriages. One child had Down syndrome, and two had congenital abnormalities including club foot. The researchers followed the children’s health for more than three years and found that most of the children were healthy although two had special education needs. Some of the children had breathing difficulties requiring ventilation at the time of birth.

TENS of thousands of women whose mothers took an anti-miscarriage drug are nearly twice as likely to develop breast cancer, researchers have warned.

A form of synthetic oestrogen called DES – diethylstilbestrol – was routinely given to pregnant women from the 1940s, as it was said to cut the risk of miscarriage and help produce healthy babies.

It was withdrawn in the 1970s amid mounting health concerns, and a new study of more than 6,000 women in the United States by academics at Boston University has found those now over 40 who were exposed to the drug in the womb are 90 per cent more likely to get breast cancer.

There was some evidence that those over 50 had treble the normal risk, but scientists said the study had not included enough people in that age group to be confident about the figure.

It was already known that so-called “DES-daughters” were at a greater risk of a rare form of vaginal cancer and suffered from fertility problems, including an increased chance of miscarriage. Men can also be affected.

About 200,000 women in the UK are thought to have taken DES, but it is unclear how many of their children are affected – many may have no idea their mothers took the drug.

The Boston team, in a report in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, said those affected should avoid hormone replacement therapy, due to the greater cancer risk.

Jane Kevan, of the campaign group DES Action, said the study confirmed the results of a smaller survey in 2002 that first suggested a link with breast cancer. She said: “The reaction from most of us in the group is, it’s another thing to worry about. Where is it all going to end?”

Heather Justice, 53, whose mother took DES for five weeks, developed vaginal cancer when she was 25 and is worried about the prospect of breast cancer.

“It was known to be carcinogenic in the 1930s and 1940s and should never have been given out. We’ve known since the 1970s about the risk of vaginal cancer and now, as these women are getting to the menopause and there are hormonal changes, we are seeing breast cancers starting to emerge,” she said.

Dr Sarah Rawlings, of Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: “The link between women who took DES during pregnancy and their daughters potentially having a higher risk of breast cancer is very concerning. If women are worried, we would advise them to speak to their doctor.”

The Kristen Hartland Memorial Fund at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center was established to help with research on pregnant women with cancer.Kristen was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 25. She went through the surgeries and chemotherapy and was excited to find out she was pregnant when she was finished with her treatments. Unfortunately while she was pregnant she was diagnosed with a recurrence. She was then treated while pregnant with Herceptin in combination with Navelbine under the care of Dr. Richard Theriault. Her son was born healthy in November of 2003.

Dr. Theriault is a professor in the department of breast/medical oncology at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and he specializes in the treatment of pregnant women with breast cancer.

The fund was set up by her husband and friends after Kristen passed away in June 2005. David has set up a website in memory of his wife Kristen.

David and his son Samuel have to adjust to a life without a loving wife and mother. One sentence that David wrote about this really got to me. He said “When it’s just me and him in the house, he goes around looking for her, goes to our room to see if she’s in bed. I just walk around the house with him and let him see that it’s just him and me now.”

For more information about the fund go to KristenHartland.com.