Breast self-exams have long been recommended as a simple way for women to keep track of anything unusual in their breasts. Now, after studies have found that such exams do not reduce breast cancer death rates, and actually increase the rate of unnecessary biopsies, many experts are recommending a more relaxed approach known as “breast awareness.”

Breast awareness is really self-explanatory. It means women should regularly check their breasts for changes, but can do so in a way that feels natural for them. In other words, you don’t have to do it on the same day each month, or using any particular pattern.

Simply be aware of what’s normal for you so you can recognize anything out of the ordinary. What should you keep an eye out for?

• A new lump or hard knot found in your breast or armpit
• Dimpling, puckering or indention in your breast or nipple
• Change in the size, shape or symmetry of your breast
• Swelling or thickening of the breast
• Redness or scaliness of the nipple or breast skin
• Nipple discharge, especially any that is bloody, clear and sticky, dark or occurs without squeezing your nipple
• Changes in your nipple such as tenderness, pain, turning or drawing inward, or pointing in a new direction
• Any suspicious changes in your breasts

• In July 1995, The Lancet again wrote about mammograms, saying "The benefit is marginal, the harm caused is substantial, and the costs incurred are enormous ..."

• Dr. Charles B. Simone, a former clinical associate in immunology and pharmacology at the National Cancer Institute, said, "Mammograms increase the risk for developing breast cancer and raise the risk of spreading or metastasizing an existing growth.”

• "The high sensitivity of the breast, especially in young women, to radiation-induced cancer was known by 1970. Nevertheless, the establishment then screened some 300,000 women with Xray dosages so high as to increase breast cancer risk by up to 20 percent in women aged 40 to 50 who were mammogramed annually,” wrote Dr. Epstein.