Posted on 11/15/2005 2:06:03 PM PST by jcb8199
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who drink eight or more cups of coffee daily while pregnant are at risk for spontaneous abortion and stillbirth, Danish researchers report. In their study, they found that fetal death was twice as likely among heavy coffee drinkers relative to pregnant women who did not drink coffee.
Adjusting for other risk factors weakened the association somewhat, but heavy coffee drinkers remained at 59 percent greater risk of fetal death, Dr. Bodil Hammer Bech of the University of Aarhus and colleagues report.
Women who drank four to seven cups daily had a 33 percent increased risk of fetal death.
"Due to our findings and previous studies we think it is reasonable to apply the precaution principle and advise pregnant women to abstain from drinking more than 3 cups of coffee per day," Bech told Reuters Health. Denmark currently has an official policy warning women to restrict their coffee intake to three cups or less daily.
While a number of studies have linked coffee drinking to undesirable pregnancy outcomes, and there are plausible physiological mechanisms by which caffeine might harm a fetus, the risks of coffee drinking in pregnancy have been questioned, Bech and colleagues explain in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
To investigate, they surveyed 88,482 women enrolled in the Danish National Birth Cohort, among whom there were 1,102 fetal deaths. The women were interviewed about coffee intake and potentially confounding factors, such as alcohol consumption and smoking, at approximately 16 weeks' gestation.
Among the women, 55.4 percent reported drinking no coffee during pregnancy, while 31.4 percent drank one-half to three cups daily. Thirteen percent of the women drank more than three cups of coffee daily, while 3.4 percent drank eight or more cups a day.
After adjustment, the researchers found, women who drank one-half to three cups a day had a 3 percent increased risk of fetal death; those who consumed four to seven cups had a 33 percent increased risk; and those who drank eight or more cups had a 59 percent greater risk of fetal death. The association was strongest for fetal deaths after 20 weeks gestation.
The researchers found no link between tea or cola consumption and fetal death, suggesting that caffeine may not be the exposure of interest. "Coffee contains a number of chemical compounds," Bech noted. "Further studies should try to disentangle a caffeine effect from a non-caffeine effect."
SOURCE: American Journal of Epidemiology, November 15, 2005.
Now they tell us, after having babies and coffee for all these years.
My gawd, how did we as a species get this far?
Well, duh!
My wife quit caffeine totally while she was pregnant.
EIGHT OR MORE CUPS A DAY!!! Sure they are at risk, they'd be bouncing off the walls!!!!
All the money wasted on these ignorant studies. Guess some people have nothing better to do. Maybe its a way of keeping unemployment down. Dig a hole and then fill it back in, dig another and fill it back in and so forth. Punch out after 8 hours and collect a check.
Those pee on the stick tests are pretty darn accurate. Caught both my wife's pregnancies.
How about hot peppers...are those risky?
But we'll just go ahead and report it in the most sensational way possible anyhow.
I thought it was risky sex that leads to pregnancy - I hope I didn't knock sombody up at Starbucks this morning -
don't forget cancer from cell phones, ddt, too much vitamin E, not enough vitamin E. I'm going to curl up in a closet for the duration and live forever.
I have found the smell of coffee nauseating for the last 2 weeks when I normally guzzle the stuff. At age 50, I'm thinking it must be a virus.
I had no taste for coffee, tea or soda pop when I was pregnant. But before and after pregnancy, I'd make a terrible mormon.
Me too. Although it was not much of a stretch since I'm a) not a coffee drinker and b) don't/didn't imbibe a whole lot in other caffeinated products in the first place. But I knew that caffeine is a "drug" and had no place being ingested. I was pretty much drug-free through all 3 of my pregnancies with the possible exception of the time I took Benadryl during a really, REALLY bad cold where I couldn't even lay down for fear of bringing on yet another horrible coughing jag from the chest congestion.
They caught none of mine, but I missed a monthly cycle (being as regular as I am ;-) and knew I was pregnant each time.
LOL - good one.......
Man, I'd better cut down--I might die of fetal death!
That's funny. The first time I got pregnant it was the only time in my life I ever craved non-diet Coke. Couldn't stand the stuff before, can't stand it now, but during the interim I practically dreamed about it. I was good though. I limited myself to one can a week and, since I never drink coffee, felt virtuous about it :)
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