Pregnant Women Can Still Drink Coffee, Study Says

By Samantha Neudorf November 23, 2015

Coffee-loving mothers rejoice! A new study found that pregnant woman can drink caffeine, as long as it’s in moderation.

The study was conducted by The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology on November 19.

Researchers analyzed 2,197 expecting mothers’ blood to measure the amount of caffeine in their bodies to see how this could affect their children’s IQs in the future. They looked at the association between a chemical called paraxanthine, which is a molecule derived from caffeine, at two points in the mothers’ pregnancies. After the children were born, they recorded their IQ levels at ages 4 and 7. There were no signs of developmental and behavioral issues in the children at those stages.

“We did not find evidence of an adverse association of maternal pregnancy caffeine consumption with child cognition or behavior at 4 or 7 years of age,” Mark A. Klebanoff, MD, principal investigator for the study, said in the article.

The mothers involved in the study took part in a Collaborative Perinatal Project that was conducted throughout the U.S. between 1959 and 1974. This was during a time when there was little concern of caffeine, so the authors concluded that this study was able to look into a broader ranger of caffeine intake.

A previous study published by The Research Institute back in March looked into the effects of caffeine consumption during pregnancy and childhood obesity. The mothers involved in the same Collaborative Perinatal Project were studied and researchers found that caffeine did not directly affect the children’s obesity. About 11 percent of the children at age 4 were obese, and seven percent were obese at age 7. The researchers did not attribute this to caffeine consumption during pregnancy.

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