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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Coffee O.K. during pregnancy, study says

Judy Peres Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO – Pregnant coffee drinkers take heart: A new study provides evidence that moderate caffeine intake will not cause a baby to be born early or underweight.

Doctors still agree it’s probably not a good idea to have 10 grande lattes a day. But with the new data, “you’re essentially telling women, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ We can drink coffee during pregnancy and not have problems,” said Dr. Marilynn Frederiksen, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Although fears that caffeine could lead to birth defects and miscarriage have largely been allayed in recent years, questions remained about whether it might be linked to birth weight and premature birth.

The latest study, reported Thursday in the online version of the British Medical Journal, is the first to attempt a controlled, randomized trial – the gold standard of medical investigation.

Danish researchers recruited more than 1,200 healthy women in the early months of pregnancy who said they drank at least three cups of coffee a day. The women were randomly assigned to receive either regular or decaffeinated instant coffee in unmarked packages.

The women were instructed to replace their usual coffee, at home and at work, with the contents of the packages, but they were allowed to drink coffee, tea, cocoa and cola served by others.

Throughout the second half of their pregnancies the women were asked to report their daily consumption of mystery coffee and other sources of caffeine.

The researchers confirmed that the women assigned decaf consumed less caffeine than the others – an average of 117 milligrams per day compared with 317 milligrams. An 8-ounce cup of regular coffee has about 100 milligrams of caffeine; instant about 65.

No significant differences occurred between the two groups in the birth weight of their babies or the frequency of pre-term delivery – even among women who drank more than seven cups of coffee a day. The babies in both groups averaged about 7 pounds 12 ounces, and the rate of premature births was 4 to 5 percent.