Your local guide to fun, food and family life.

In this section

• Man\'s genes \'key to baby\'s sex\'
  A man's genetic make-up may play a role in whether he has sons or daughters, a study of hundreds of years of family trees suggests.
• Unicef child study disputed by UK
  The UK government has complained about a study saying early years childcare and education in England is falling behind that of other developed nations.
• Pop tunes used to calm babies
  Rocking a baby to sleep has been given a whole new meaning as mothers ditch traditional lullabies for popular pop and rock tunes.
• Caesarean increases asthma risk
  Babies born by Caesarean section are more prone to developing asthma, say Dutch researchers.
• Left-handers\\\' lower test scores
  Left-handed pupils do less well in tests than their right-handed peers, a study from Bristol University suggests.
• Obesity \'programmed before birth\'
  Eating a high-fat diet in pregnancy may cause changes in the foetal brain that lead to over-eating and obesity early in life, research suggests.

Breastfeeding cuts cancer risk

Breastfeeding for a year over the course of a woman's life helps cut the risk of breast cancer, research says.

The World Cancer Research Fund analysed 7,000 previous studies and found it reduced the risk by 4.8%.

Women have a one in nine chance of getting breast cancer in their lifetime, meaning that the overall reduction in risk is just above 0.5%.

Researchers said it was important that women realised the positive effect of breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding has been linked to lower obesity levels in children and is known to confer immunity to the newborn against a clutch of infections, including respiratory diseases.

However, a recent survey found that only one in four women in the UK knew breastfeeding cut the chance of them developing breast cancer.

Read more.