There’s new and exciting new in our family: we’re expecting another child to arrive sometime around mid-March. My husband and I are thrilled! The development also brings along a multitude of research topics to make sure I’m keeping up the latest evidence on having a healthy pregnancy.
One of the first things that caught my eye was a note from my doctor’s office about caffeine intake: basically one (normal-sized) cup of coffee a day is safe for the baby.
That was news to me! I do enjoy wrapping my hands around a steamy cup of dark roast every day. Last time I was pregnant, only two years ago, I cut out caffeine altogether because studies have linked caffeine with low-birth weight. But – as often – the available evidence has changed.
Earlier this year, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued guidelines that recommend less than 200 mg of caffeine a day for pregnant women. (An 8-ounce cup of brewed, drip coffee averages 137 mg of caffeine.)
“Finally, we have good evidence to show that having a cup of coffee a day is fine and it poses no risk to the fetus,” Dr. William H. Barth Jr., chairman of the committee on obstetric practice and chief of the division of maternal-fetal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, told U.S. News and World Report.
As for more than that, the jury is still out. The Cochrane Collaboration says that more work needs to be done to determine exactly how much caffeine is safe for a fetus. Their researchonly found one piece of evidence that met the collaboration’s inclusion criteria and provided relevant data: A study in Denmark where women less than 20 weeks pregnant were randomly assigned to drinking caffeinated instant coffee or dedecaffeinated instant coffee. The study found drinking three cups of coffee a day in early pregnancy had no effect on birthweight, preterm births or growth restriction.
For now, I’ll take my one cup a day. It’s just enough to help me keep up with our two-year-old during those late afternoon periods of low-energy.
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