Doctors and nutrition counselors have long cautioned against expectant mothers con-suming coffee. But a new Australian study has found no links between coffee consumption during pregnancy and neurodevelopmental difficulties in children…
The bold declaration was not made without some serious number crunching on an extensive data set including health stats from some the world’s heaviest coffee drinkers. The difference from past stud-ies comes in a new technique to gauge coffee’s effects separately from those of other potentially harmful factors…
What they did
Dr Gunn-Helen Moen and PhD student Shannon D’Urso from University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) led an in-depth genetic analysis of data from tens of thousands of fam-ilies in Norway.
“Scandinavians are some of the biggest coffee consumers in the world, drinking at least 4 cups a day, with little stigma about drinking coffee during pregnancy,” Dr Moen explained. “Our study used gen-etic data from mothers, fathers and babies as well as questionnaires about the parents’ coffee con-sumption before and during pregnancy.
In addition, “The participants also answered questions about their child’s development until the age of 8, including their social, motor, and language skills.”
For the first time, researchers programmed-in analysis algorithms filtering out the effects of other potentially harmful substances including alcohol and tobacco.
Eye-opening results
“Our analysis found no link between coffee consumption during pregnancy and children’s neurodev-elopmental difficulties,” Moen reports. The researchers say physiological changes during preg-nancy prevent caffeine from crossing the placenta and reaching the foetus, which has no enzymes to metabolise it.
A previous study by Dr Moen, performed on the same basis, showed that drinking coffee in pregnancy did not affect birth weight, risk of miscarriage or stillbirth.
The takeaway
Expectant mothers can breathe a little easier about enjoying the odd cup of coffee now and then.
However, the team cautions that mom’s-to-be should continue to follow their physicians’ coffee ad-vice. There remain other pregnancy issues Moen and her people have not tested for – yet.
My take
By all means… Always take an abundance of care when dealing with issues concerning babies and unborn children. But also take heart that the odd latté lapse will probably not endanger your dev-eloping child!
~ Maggie J.