There’s a shocking new breast cancer statistic that’s likely to have frightened women across the country. Women who have their first baby in their thirties or don’t have children at all, an expert warned at the world’s largest cancer conference, are 60 per cent more likely to develop the disease before menopause than those who give birth for the first time in their early twenties.

If that gave you a nasty jolt, I’m not surprised.

But, let me separate the science from the hype.

It’s not wrong that the age you have your first baby is relevant. But that 60 per cent only applies to breast cancer that strikes before the menopause, which is the less common kind.

About one in five cases are found in women under 50. And it’s worth understanding what that 60 per cent really tells you, because it’s not as alarming as it first looks.

The risk is small to begin with, so a big-sounding rise still leaves you with a small risk.

To put rough numbers on it, imagine that a younger woman’s chance of this type of breast cancer is about two in 100.

That 60 per cent increase when having your first baby later doesn’t send that rocketing. It edges it up to something nearer three in 100.

The figure sounds dramatic, but for any one woman the actual change is roughly one extra case in a hundred.

What’s more, that frightening 60 per cent figure does not consider one very important thing: having children in your late thirties does not send your overall risk of breast cancer soaring. In fact, it brings it down overall.

Yes, there’s a small, brief rise in your risk the years just after a baby arrives. This is because pregnancy floods the body with oestrogen and triggers rapid changes in the breast as it gears up to produce milk.

If there happen to be any early, abnormal cells already lurking there, that surge can nudge them along for a while, so your risk creeps up temporarily.

Over the following years, though, pregnancy also matures and remodels the breast tissue in a way that makes it more resistant to cancer and that’s the effect that lasts.

Cancer Research UK said exactly that within hours of the warning making the headlines, pointing out, that motherhood lowers a woman’s risk on balance rather than raising it.

But if you don’t have children, please do not lie awake at night worrying about the consequences of this.

As Fiona Osgun, from Cancer Research UK, said: ‘Cancer is a complex disease, and many factors impact someone’s risk of developing it. Having children lowers the risk of someone developing breast cancer, but it’s a very personal decision that people make for many reasons.

‘There are many other ways that women can reduce their risk of cancer that will have a much bigger impact.’

Roughly a quarter of breast cancers in the UK are preventable.

And the everyday culprits are more familiar than you’d think. Carrying extra weight after the menopause is behind about eight per cent of cases. Alcohol, another eight per cent.

Put plainly, that glass of wine every evening after a busy day and a slowly expanding waistline matter every bit as much as the reproductive history everyone’s wringing their hands over this week.

The difference? You can pour a smaller glass of wine or abstainmore evenings than not. You can’t go back and change the optimum time when you started your family.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer we have, with more than 59,000 new cases every year. One in seven women in the UK will be diagnosed with it at some point in their lives. However, the good news is that survival rates are high with about 77 per cent of women living with the disease for ten years or more.

Survival rates are climbing year on year, mostly because we’re catching it sooner.

And catching it sooner is the absolute key. So set that 60 per cent to one side and get to know your own body instead.

Being breast-aware simply means knowing how your breasts usually look and feel. Keep an eye out for a new lump or thickening, whether in the breast itself, the upper chest or the armpit, and for any change in size or shape.

Watch for skin that puckers, dimples or reddens, for a nipple that suddenly turns inward or a rash or crusting around it.

Take note of any unusual discharge or a pain that simply won’t go away.

Be reassured that nine times out of ten, any changes turn out to be nothing to worry about. But don’t wait. Go to your GP even if you feel well, because the sooner anything is found the easier it is to deal with.

If you’re between 50 and 71, say yes to that screening invitation when it drops through your letterbox. A mammogram every three years is one of the few proven ways we have of spotting signs of breast cancer before you’d ever feel it yourself.

There’s little point in fretting over a reproductive choice you made years ago and can never undo.

I’d rather you turned this page feeling reassured and put your energy into things that are still firmly in your hands.

Meghan the mercantile mother 

Meghan has been at it again, posting snaps on Instagram, captioned ‘Springing into summer’. There’s Harry kicking a giant football to son Archie. Then there’s five-year-old Lilibet in a top emblazoned with the slogan

‘B is for Beyoncé’. The very picture of a contented family. However, yet again not one of the children’s faces is visible. It tells you this is not a mother carelessly sharing happy family time. Every shot is a carefully composed product. The pictures were published the day after Meghan unveiled her latest brand collaboration. 

We’re being invited into special moments that have been styled and timed with the precision of an advertising campaign, because, in effect, that’s what it is. The healthiest thing you can do with this is remember what it is: not a window into family life, but a shop window.

Children smacked at the ages of three, five and seven did slightly worse in their GCSEs and were a little more likely to bully, a University College London study found. Cue fresh demands to follow Scotland and Wales and outlaw smacking in England. What the study found is a modest correlation. Difficult children are smacked more often precisely because they’re difficult, so it’s not clear whether the smacking shaped the behaviour or the behaviour invited the smacking. 

You may have read that low vitamin C could raise your risk of dementia. But look closer. The study of 2,000 older adults in Japan measured brain structure at a single moment, not dementia, and it didn’t prove one causes the other.