Coffee drinking not dangerous for unborn babies
New research backs previous studies
that show that pregnant women can drink a moderate amount of
coffee without harming their babies.
Researchers
from Yale University School of Medicine in the US say their
study shows that "moderate caffeine consumption
during pregnancy does not meaningfully influence foetal growth".
They
also report no evidence of risk from decaffeinated coffee. However
among women who drink six or more cups of coffee daily, the birth
weight of infants tended to be lower than those who drank less
coffee.
The evidence supports Danish research reported in the
BMJ recently that found pregnant women who drink eight or more
cups of coffee a day run more than twice the risk of stillbirth
compared with women who do not drink coffee.
The team assessed
coffee intake of around 2,300 pregnant women and found that caffeine
consumption did not increase the risk of premature birth or hamper
growth in the womb.
But caffeine consumption was found to reduce
birth weight by 28 grams per 100 milligrams (about one cup) of
daily caffeine intake. They stressed however that this would
only be significant in extreme cases.
"This small decrease in birth weight, observed for maternal
caffeine consumption, is unlikely to be clinically important except
for women consuming 600mg of caffeine daily (about six cups of
coffee)," wrote the researchers in this month's American Journal
of Epidemiology.
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