Women Pregnancy

Danish researchers report that moderate drinking moderate amounts of caffeine during pregnancy women does not cause premature or underweight births. Researchers found no evidence of a link between prematurity, birth weight and the amount of caffeine consumed by motherstobe.
Previous studies suggested caffeine might harm unborn babies as it stays in the system longer in pregnant women, passing easily to a growing baby. Conflicting results from earlier studies “have puzzled public health authorities and in some countries pregnant women are warned against caffeine consumption,'’ the researchers write in British Medical Journal.

Unlike other research projects in which women who had given birth were asked how much coffee they drank while pregnant, the Danish scientists monitored 1,207 pregnant coffee lovers who were randomly selected to drink either a caffeinated or decaffeinated brew during the second half of the pregnancy. The group was split into two, with 568 women drinking ordinary instant coffee and 629 drinking decaffeinated. Each woman was regularly monitored to check her caffeine intake, including from drinks such as cola. The authors then monitored the birth weight of 1,150 newborn babies and the length of pregnancy for 1,153 of the babies. Among women drinking caffeinated coffee, 4.2 percent of infants were born prematurely, and 4.5 percent were small for gestational age, vs. 5.2 percent premature births and 4.7 percent underweight in the decaffeinated group.

“This study is better than the other studies that have been published because it’s based on a much stronger design,” said senior author Dr. Jorn Olsen, professor and chair of the department of epidemiology at the University of California, Los Angeles. “This study provides pretty good evidence that caffeine, in itself, does not reduce fetal growth, although it may have other side effects.”
Women who smoked more than 10 cigarettes a day had babies with a lower mean birth weight if they were randomized to the caffeinated group compared with smokers randomized to the decaffeinated group. Although that finding may be due to chance, the authors stated, it could also be because smokers metabolize caffeine faster than non-smokers. And caffeine may have effects beyond the ones studied.

“We cannot rule out that caffeine could produce miscarriage or other things. Our study only looked at fetal growth and preterm delivery, so that’s the only thing we know about,” Olsen said. “We have no reason to believe that coffee is a necessary food item for pregnant women. I think it’s wise that they should be a little cautious, but, in any case, if a pregnant woman gave birth to a low birth weight baby, it’s highly unlikely that this was the case.”