Caffeine doubles miscarriage risk - study

From stuff.co.nz:

Pregnant women who drink two or more cups of coffee a day have twice the risk of having a miscarriage as those who avoid caffeine, US researchers said.


They said the study provides strong evidence that high doses of caffeine during pregnancy - 200 milligrams or more per day or the equivalent of two cups of coffee - significantly increase the risk of miscarriage.

And they said the research may finally put to rest conflicting reports about the link between caffeine consumption and miscarriage.

"Women who are pregnant or are actively seeking to become pregnant should stop drinking coffee for three months or hopefully throughout pregnancy," said Dr. De-Kun Li of Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, whose study appears in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

"There has been a lot of uncertainty about this," Li said in a telephone interview. "There was no firm advice from professional societies to say what a pregnant woman should do about caffeine intake."

Li said anywhere from 15 to 18 studies have found a link between caffeine use during pregnancy and miscarriage. But that association has been clouded by the fact that many pregnant women avoid caffeine because it makes them nauseated, which could skew the results.

Li and colleagues took pains to control for that possibility. Their study involved 1,063 pregnant women who were members of the Kaiser Permanente health plan in San Francisco from October 1996 through October 1998. Women in the group never changed their caffeine consumption during pregnancy.

What they found was women who consumed the equivalent of two or more cups of regular coffee or five 12-ounce cans of caffeinated soda -- were twice as likely to miscarry as pregnant women who avoided caffeine.

This risk appeared to be related to the caffeine, rather than other chemicals in coffee, because they also saw an increased risk when the caffeine was consumed in soda, tea, and hot chocolate.

Li said many researchers think caffeine is harmful because it stresses the fetus' immature metabolism. It may also decrease blood flow in the placenta, which could harm the fetus.

"To me, the safe dose is zero," Li said. "If you really have to drink coffee, try to limit it to one cup or at the most two cups." Or better yet, switch to decaffeinated beverages, he added.

Based on the findings, Dr. Tracy Flanagan, director of women's health at Kaiser Permanente Northern California, said pregnant women should think about limiting coffee to one cup a day, and they might want to cut it out entirely.

"So many causes of miscarriage are not controllable," she said in a telephone interview. "This is an opportunity to do something active."
---

Interesting!

I'm sure I read somewhere before that you should limit your caffiene so I cut down to one a day. Was tricky but probably good for me!

Kazzle wrote: well i would like to say that i dont drink coffee...cant stand the stuff, dont drink a lot of soft drink, and only eat a little chocolate...so well yeah, just something else to scare us with i think...JMHO

I totally agree in saying that to I did stop with Alan and cut down with Mikey, but not so much with this one so this will prob make me think about it abit more when I head to muffin break.   

I saw this on the news too, very interesting. I don't drink much (if any coffee) but I drink diet coke and coke zero like its going out of fashion.

i cut down on my caffeine when preggers mainly cause when i was bigger the babies went nuts and kicked - it hurt! then when breastfedding they would get all hyper awake.

I had a reasonable ammount of V when pregnant with Seb.. and my midwife went completely nutty at me about it. Nevermind that it has about the same caffeine as a cup of coffee, and I only had maybe 2 cans a week =/ I don't drink much of the stuff now, but when i do, it's as a treat after AF comes

I've drank on average a cup of coffee a day this entire pregnancy. One of the first signs that I was pregnant was that my appetite for coffee had reduced dramatically.

I agree with Flissty and think that your body knows best.

I dont normally drink a lot of coffee in fact very very rarely, but in my first trimester it was one thing that would help slightly with the morning sickness. Mind you I did try to limit it and would use less than half a teaspoon of coffee.

I heard about caffine too, though I heard it may even triple the risk of miscarriage! As we lost our last baby at just before 7 weeks I decided to be extra careful and have avoided it (totally used to be a coke addict and kinda miss it!). I rekon, like with many things, if you've never had a miscarriage then don't worry about things too much. But if you have lost a baby you just wanna be extra careful.