Moderate caffeine consumption during pregnancy not detrimental to baby’s health

Klebanoff said that pregnant women should indulge in moderate coffee drinking.

The amount of paraxanthine encountered for each pregnant woman was compared against the IQ and overall behavior corresponding to the subject’s child, at the age of 4 and 7.

The NHS warns high levels of caffeine in pregnancy can result in babies having a low birth weight which can increase the risk of health problems later in life.

Dr Mark Klebanoff, lead investigator at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and a faculty member at the university, said: ‘We did not find evidence of an adverse association of maternal pregnancy caffeine consumption with child cognition or behaviour at four or seven years of age’.

A new study finds pregnant women can drink coffee without affecting their child’s intelligence or behavior.

The samples were collected between 1959 and 1974, a period when during pregnancy was more common, the researchers noted in their study. According to the researchers, this was an era when coffee consumption during pregnancy was more prevalent than today, as there was little concern regarding the safety of caffeine.

The researchers examined the effects of a specific chemical called paraxanthine, which is a central nervous stimulant and a “caffeine marker”.

Since, the findings do not show any link between consuming moderate amount of caffeine while pregnant and reduced IQ or increased behavioral problems in those kids, expectant mothers now can have 1 or 2 cups of coffee a day without worrying that their coffee habit will affect their children’s IQ or behavior later in childhood.

The study comes from researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, OH, and is published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

It was discovered that in fact moderate coffee intake among expectant mothers had no statistically significant effect on the baby’s intelligence.

Scientists analyzed the amount of the compound paraxanthine found in blood samples from pregnant women across two points during their term. This provided the researchers with a wider range of caffeine-intake levels than if the research had been conducted today, the investigators wrote in their study.

Although 11% of the children in the study were obese at 4 years, and 7% were obese at 7 years, the researchers said they did not find any links between the mother’s caffeine intake and these cases of obesity.

This study follows previous research regarding caffeine consumption during pregnancy conducted at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s.