I feel guilty over what I fed my daughter as a child... is it my fault she got breast cancer at 34? The harrowing stories of the mothers who blame themselves for their fit and healthy children's shock diagnosis

Breast cancer is a disease usually associated with women aged over 50. But alarming new figures show cases are rising among younger women – the number of diagnoses in those under 50 increased by 1.4 per cent a year between 2012 and 2022, compared to 1 per cent for older women, according to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation – and it’s not clear why.

Here three mothers, who’ve not had the disease, and their daughters, all recently diagnosed, talk frankly about their life-changing experience and its effect on their relationship…

When Becky and Mark [her husband] said they needed to talk to us, I thought she was going to announce she was pregnant. It never occurred to me that she was going to say she had breast cancer.

Much as I wanted to break down at the news, I couldn’t: my daughter needed us both to be strong.

Until that point, we’d led a rather charmed life. Two wonderful children, private education, lovely holidays, no major health worries. And then, crash: and you realise money means nothing.

We bought a lot of books on cancer but David took it upon himself to do the reading as I couldn’t face it.

Becky insisted that David and I go on our planned holiday to France a few weeks later. But it was there that we got the devastating news the cancer had actually spread to her bones.

We didn’t know what this meant at first – that it was incurable. Learning this put a totally different perspective on things. Suddenly, David and I weren’t thinking: ‘We’ll get through the next year and everything will be fine’ – it was: ‘This is forever. We don’t know how long we have left with her.’

We found our different ways to cope. David is good at research and Mark, who she’s been with for 14 years [married for four] helps practically, attending appointments and cooking all Becky’s meals from scratch.

The best thing I can do for Becky (and myself) is to distract her: there are often times where I’ll say: ‘Come on, let’s go for a coffee’ to keep her occupied.

I have a lot of guilt about her diagnosis. I’ve lain awake at night wondering if it’s something genetic in me or David that’s caused this.

My maternal grandmother died of breast cancer and my paternal grandmother had breast cancer in her 70s, but died years later of another cancer.

David’s mother also had breast cancer, but any genetic test for Becky has come back negative. I also find myself wondering – did I give her a healthy enough diet as a child?

Both David and I’ve said that if we could have the cancer for her, we would. I think any parent would. Even my 92-year-old mum has said the same. It breaks my heart that Becky now can’t give birth to a baby. Her cancer is driven by oestrogen and her treatment means she’s going through menopause.

Surrogacy is a possibility but she’s at that stage of life where lots of friends are having children and that must be very difficult for her.

I’m lucky because I have people I can confide in when I’m feeling a little tearful. My mum lived through the war so she’s so stoic. My girlfriends also give me perspective – no one’s life is perfect, we all have things going on in the background.

So even though I wake up every day and the first thing to hit me is this nightmare, I’m able to get on with the day. And we all take our strength from Becky, whose attitude has been remarkable.

She is pro-active, sticking to a healthy diet and exercise and keeping on top of new research, treatments and trials.

She’s now on a variety of drugs including injections that shut off her ovaries and another drug – an oral CDK4/6 inhibitor that helps stop cancer cells multiplying.

It’s a lot for her to cope with but she doesn’t complain – she just gets on with it.

Becky and I have always been close but we’re closer than ever now. But living with the uncertainty is the hardest – life isn’t normal, it’s always there at the back of all of our minds.

One hope we all live with is that a new ground-breaking trial will be offered and as long as we have hope, we don’t dwell too much on what lies ahead.

We were trying for a baby when I found a lump in my right breast – I thought it might be something to do with pregnancy hormones.

The GP referred me for scans and when I was having an ultrasound I felt the ‘vibe’ in the room shift – and I was told later that day they were 90 per cent sure it was cancer.

I couldn’t believe it: I remember saying: ‘So what do I do with that?’

Mark came to meet me and telling him was so sad. I rang my best friend – a doctor – and had a bit of a cry.

But I had a wedding to go to the next afternoon and decided I wouldn’t tell my parents until after that, to give them the news in person – I thought there would be some big emotional breakdown, but Mum and Dad were stronger than I anticipated.

I had a mastectomy a month after finding the lump and then the following month, I underwent egg collection because one day we’d like to have kids.

We ended up with nine embryos, which was a good amount.

But on the same day, I got a call to say the cancer was in my bones. I had no idea what this meant but thoughts such as recording my own eulogy were popping into my head.

If anything, I felt grateful that if ‘bad news’ was going to hit our family then it was my bad news rather than something awful happening to one of them.

I only discovered that cancer in the bones is incurable when looking at a leaflet in a waiting room. I remember then asking a really silly question – do I have 80 years left to live? – which would make me over 110 when I died.

The doctor pulled a face and asked if I wanted a prognosis. I said no. I know that the average is two years on the treatment I’m now on, but I’m hoping for at least five and then I can go on to a new treatment and hope to have ten or more years after that.

Telling my parents that my cancer was incurable was really difficult – I was saying things like there was no chemo that could treat my cancer and it took my parents a while to understand and it taught me that the more I try to hide scarier things, the more difficult it is.

Mum and I have always been close and I’m seeing her more than ever now that I’ve stopped working – every few days.

My dad is super positive and really into all the clinical detail, which allows me to leave all the research to him and my brother.

I’m aware Mum feels guilty, and she shouldn’t. It’s a funny one, because I’m constantly trying to manage my own feelings but at the same time, I’m aware my loved ones are also going through their own cancer journey.

For now, we’re all moving forward optimistically.

Until the day Jo told me she had cancer, I’d had no experience of it – no one had had it in our family, nor any of my friends.

I knew Jo was going for some kind of breast screening and afterwards, she rang and said: ‘It’s cancer.’ Shock hits you first. Then incomprehension. She was only 41. I’d heard that younger women were being diagnosed but I couldn’t understand why her – she’s a fit and healthy young woman.

She had a lumpectomy to remove the fairly small lump from her left breast, then chemo: two months into treatment, she split up with her partner – he hadn’t been coping with her illness – and I knew she’d need me even more.

While I’d say we’re close, she’s quite private and I understood that she wouldn’t want me to talk too much about it unless she wanted to talk herself.

When Jo’s ill, she doesn’t want people around her – she’s always been like that – so although she’d been living with me (along with one of her brothers and the dog), I knew she needed somewhere quiet to isolate after treatment so I found an Airbnb nearby.

I accompanied her to chemo – it was very difficult seeing her suffering with the side-effects.

But probably the most difficult part for me was seeing her after she made the decision to shave off her hair.

I understood it, but seeing her bald for the first time was a shock.

While we didn’t really speak much about her actual illness, there were times when I sobbed my heart out in private.

She kept her emotions hidden, too, although just occasionally she would have a cry. During one very difficult time towards the end of her treatment I remember her saying she felt she couldn’t go on. That was really hard to hear.

I did my best to find some counselling for her, but the charity I spoke to was useless. But she came and stayed with me, talked a little and she got through it.

Jo finished her treatment last year, but of course I’m fearful that the cancer might come back.

Every time her annual check comes round, I have a feeling of dread.

I don’t see her as often now – she’s building a new life for herself with her new partner and I’m really pleased for her. But although she’s moved away, I think we’re closer. Whenever I see her and we say goodbye, I always give her a hug now. Something we rarely did before.

Around my 41st birthday I started experiencing pain in my left breast when I went cold-water swimming – something I did regularly.

After a few weeks I went to my GP, who thought the area was more dense and that it could be an infected gland – but sent me for a mammogram and ultrasound.

This showed what they thought was a cyst, however when they inserted the needle to take a biopsy I could tell the lump was hard. And I’d been a student nurse so knew this could be cancer. A week later it was confirmed as oestrogen-positive cancer.

Psychologically I’d prepared myself but it was still a shock. Thankfully they had caught it early and I hoped I could simply have a lumpectomy and get on with my life, protecting those I loved – my daughter and my mum – from finding out, because I knew they’d be distressed.

But the surgery was just before Christmas and as it would affect our plans, I had to tell them. Naturally, my daughter was upset and shocked. I don’t actually recall how I told Mum or how she reacted, it’s all a blur.

I didn’t want to confide emotionally in her because we don’t have that kind of relationship – we’re close and she’s very supportive but she’s emotional: I knew she’d get upset and frustrated and that would make my life difficult.

However, she was brilliant at organising things practically, such as helping me to find somewhere to recover away from everyone else. I’ve spoken to other breast cancer patients who moved in with their mums while going through treatment, but I hated the thought of being nursed by anyone.

I needed to protect Mum and my daughter from seeing me during the worst stages of chemo – it was also a form of self-protection: I wanted to deal with this on my own so, when it was all over, I could forget about it.

Today, we’re still close but in a different way: I’ve always either lived with Mum or very close by, but I’ve just bought a house about 30 minutes’ drive away.

I feel it’s good for both of us. I know she’d be there for me no matter what, but it’s time for us both to build our lives more independently so we can all move on from the cancer.

No one needed to say the actual words when I found out Natalia had breast cancer. She’d told me she’d had a biopsy and that the specialist had mentioned ‘irregular edges’ of the lump – when I’d Googled it, I had a sinking feeling.

When Darren returned home from work early on the day of Natalia’s results I immediately suspected something was wrong.

Natalia had clearly wanted him to break the news to me gently. But when I saw his face I knew without him saying a word. He opened his arms out, but I ran underneath them, up the road and to my parents’ house. You never know how you’re going to react when you’re in shock and I needed my own mum in that moment.

My mum, who is nearly 80, was incredibly upset too. Natalia was so young, we felt if anyone was going to get it, it should have been one of the older generation – she didn’t drink, smoke, she’s just so healthy and there’s no breast cancer in the family.

I have so much mum guilt. I keep remembering a time when I left her out in the garden as a baby and she got sunburnt. Or what about the talcum powder I used on her? My daughters tell me to stop blaming myself, but that’s what mums do.

It’s been horrible watching Natalia go through so many procedures – a double mastectomy, a reconstruction and then another operation to correct her reconstruction five weeks ago. She’s had radiotherapy too and been so brave.

I have helped out in practical ways – looking after her children, cleaning the house, making the beds.

I’m there all the time now, much more so than before. But I don’t bring up the subject of her illness unless she wants to talk about it.

At the beginning, even saying: ‘Can I do anything to help?’ made her burst into tears so I learned quickly to just get on with things and if she wanted to confide in me, I was always there.

Sometimes it’s hard for me – she’s so independent and won’t open up more to me – but she doesn’t like people seeing her get emotional.

Now, coming out of the other side, I can see a worry in her that wasn’t there before. She’s still a happy-go-lucky person, but I sense that the thought of her cancer is playing at the back of her mind all the time – it’s there for me, too.

In the summer of 2023 I discovered a lump just below my armpit – the GP wasn’t too worried as I had no family history but she referred me to a consultant, who also wasn’t too worried given my age.

A mammogram didn’t pick anything up, so I had an ultrasound scan and a biopsy. A week later, I found out I had Grade 2 oestrogen-positive breast cancer. The first reaction was panic and thoughts of death. Fleetingly, I remember thinking I wanted people to wear white at my funeral.

My main priority is to be around for as long as possible for my children, so when a mastectomy was mentioned I said I wanted both breasts removed.

When Mum found out, she went into panic mode: she kept asking why not her, why me, and saying silly things like it was her fault.

My mother-in-law Sara is less emotional and so she would come to appointments with me – and take everything in when I was overwhelmed.

But Mum’s been a brilliant help with the children and around the house – she knows how much I love having clean sheets on the bed.

After the surgery I needed radiotherapy and felt very flat emotionally – but that finished in November 2023 (though I’m now taking tamoxifen).

Mum, my sister and I have always been close but I confide in Becky more now, to protect Mum and myself from too much emotion. But Mum’s been amazing.

• Becky and Natalia have taken part in MoonWalk London, fundraising for breast cancer research. This year’s event is on Saturday, May 17. Visit the Walk the Walk website to take part.