Well girls, we now have yet ANOTHER thing to blame our mothers for: a higher risk of breast cancer. Of course, this is only for those of you with "hippy" moms (and not the Woodstock kind).

A British study led by the University of Southampton found that breast cancer rates were more than three times higher for women whose mothers had big hips. And it really sucks if you're not the oldest in the family, because rates were more than seven times higher if those mothers had already given birth.

The theory behind the results suggests that high levels of estrogen, passed on from mother to daughter are to blame. Women with big hips are believed to have high levels of estrogen, which circulates through the mother's blood during the first weeks of pregnancy. During this time, if the embryo's developing breast tissue is exposed to those high levels it may increase the cancer risk years down the road. Talk about baggage!

The researchers based their findings on the records of more than 6,370 Finnish women born in Helsinki between 1934 and 1944, whose mothers' pelvic bones had been measured during routine care after birth. Between 1971 and 2003, the researchers followed up the women for any cases of breast cancer or death using the national registers of all hospital admissions and deaths in Finland. Of these, 300 developed breast cancer (that's about 5%) and 48 died.

Just to make you feel better, in the US, the overall rate is about 100 cases per 100,000 women - so that's only 1%. By age 50, you have a 1 in 37 chance (or about 3%) of developing breast cancer in the next 10 years. And that's whether or not your mom had big hips, big hair or a big mouth.

In any case, the Southampton researchers believe their work supports the hypothesis that wide, "saftig"hips reflect high levels of sex hormone production at puberty, which then continue into adult life, and even impact the embryo during pregnancy.

"A woman's hips are shaped at puberty when the growth of her hip bones is controlled by sex hormones, and also influenced by the level of nutrition," said researcher Professor David Barker, "Our findings show for the first time that the growth spurt of girls at puberty is strongly associated with the risk of breast cancer in their daughters."

But the rest of the jury is still out. Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK says "The importance of estrogen in stimulating the growth of breast cancer is well known. " However, Walker continues, "While this study appears to show an effect that crosses a generation we would need to see the results confirmed in follow-up studies."