![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.pregnanthealth.com\/images\/iStock_000008878799XSmall.jpg\" "\\"Prenatal")
Everyone has seen the warnings about drinking alcohol during pregnancy, but what about drinking caffeine and pregnancy? Coffee contains caffeine, which is a stimulant drug, and it does cross the placenta, so any caffeine a pregnant woman consumes does make its way to fetus.\u00a0 What research has not adequately shown is whether or not caffeine harms a developing baby.<\/p>\n
The consensus about caffeine and pregnancy seems to be that a daily ritual of two or three 8 oz cups of drip coffee (300 mgs of caffeine) in the morning won\u2019t cause any harm.\u00a0 This brings up the question, who drinks an 8oz cup of drip coffee these days?\u00a0 An 8 oz size is rarely on the menu for coffee shops, where a 12 oz cup is small and a 16 oz cup is standard.\u00a0 One shot of espresso has about 100 mg of caffeine.\u00a0 According to the manager at my local Starbucks, a 16 oz Americano has three shots.\u00a0 So one Starbucks Americano puts a woman at the limit.\u00a0 That means no additional soda, tea, or even chocolate.<\/p>\n
Some research by the March of Dimes has appeared to indicate that more than 300 mgs of caffeine may increase the risk of miscarriage, preterm labor, and low birth weight.\u00a0 The information to date about caffeine and pregnancy<\/a> is persuasive, but not conclusive.\u00a0 Other studies have shown that babies whose mothers consumed more than 500 mg of caffeine a day had faster heart rates and breathing rates than babies whose mom\u2019s avoided caffeine.\u00a0 The scariest studies are those that show a link between caffeine and diminished intelligence.\u00a0 Fortunately those studies have only been conducted on rats and monkeys.\u00a0 In some areas there is a correlation between animal studies and human effects, in others areas animals and humans react totally differently.\u00a0 At the present, there isn\u2019t a clear indication which way this one will go.<\/p>\n Will caffeine harm your baby?\u00a0 Maybe not, but caffeine and pregnancy doesn\u2019t appear to be a risk<\/a> worth taking, since caffeine isn\u2019t going to help you during your pregnancy either.\u00a0 Pregnant women<\/a> need to get adequate rest, including good sleep.\u00a0 Caffeine\u2019s stimulant effect raises the heart rate and can induce insomnia.\u00a0 It also has a diuretic effect.\u00a0 Pregnant women<\/a> have a greater risk of dehydration than other women, so drinking coffee may be making a bad situation that much worse.\u00a0 The further along in pregnancy a woman is, the slower her body metabolizes caffeine.\u00a0 Having it remain in the body longer, means its ill effects may be magnified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everyone has seen the warnings about drinking alcohol during pregnancy, but what about drinking caffeine and pregnancy? Coffee contains caffeine, which is a stimulant drug, and it does cross the placenta, so any caffeine a pregnant woman consumes does make its way to fetus.\u00a0 What…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pregnanthealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pregnanthealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pregnanthealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pregnanthealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pregnanthealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.pregnanthealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1271,"href":"https:\/\/www.pregnanthealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions\/1271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pregnanthealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pregnanthealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pregnanthealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pregnanthealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}