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Women who drink eight or more cups of coffee a day during preg-nancy could be
doubling or even trebling the risk of losing their child compared to those
who abstain, say researchers. Even four cups a day, regarded as a safe
level, could increase the chance of stillbirth by as much as 80%, they
say.
The research findings published today confirm an earlier anecdotal link between
high doses of caffeine and baby death and evidence from studies involving monkeys
but the results could also increase anxiety among pregnant women about the safety
of common foods and drinks after they were told on Monday to avoid eating too
much tuna.
Kirsten Wisborg, a specialist registrar at the Aarhus University Hospital in
Denmark who led the study, said, "The risk of stillbirth increased with
the number of cups of coffee a day during pregnancy.
"Compared to women who did not drink any coffee, women who drank four to
seven cups had an 80% increased risk of stillbirth and women who drank eight
or more cups a day a 300% increased risk."
The Danish study, which is published in the British Medical Journal, focused
on more than 18,000 pregnant women and found that heavy coffee drinkers were
also more likely to smoke, drink more alcohol, be single parents and have less
education.
Even after adjusting for the effect of smoking during pregnancy, the association
between coffee consumption and stillbirth was just as significant.
"The adjusted risk of stillbirth was lower among women who drank one to
three cups per day, slightly increased among women who drank four to seven cups
a day and more than doubled among women who drank eight or more cups of coffee
per day," said the research team.
"These results seem to indicate a threshold effect around four to seven
cups a day.
"There did not seem to be one single cause that could explain the increased
risk of stillbirth among women with a high intake of coffee."
This latest warning of a risk to the health of unborn babies comes just days
after pregnant women were warned to limit the amount of tuna they eat because
of the small risk that mercury in the fish posed to unborn and breastfeeding
babies' developing nervous systems.
Pregnant women have also been advised to avoid eating shark, swordfish and marlin.
The Food Standards Agency has been advising pregnant women to limit their caffeine
intake to less than 300mg, four cups of coffee, a day, for the past two years
after the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the
Environment linked it to low birth weight and miscarriage.
A limit of 300mg is the equivalent to six cups of tea, eight cans of regular
cola drinks, four cans of caffeine-based energy drinks or eight 40g bars of chocolate.
A spokeswoman for the Food Standards Agency said, "Although we have just
seen the paper, its findings seem to be broadly consistent with the body of evidence
on the effects of caffeine on pregnant women which was reviewed by the Committee
on Toxicity and led the FSA to advise pregnant women to limit their caffeine
intake to 300mg or four cups of coffee a day.
"Unless a more extensive look at the research shows something different
there doesn't seem to be any need to review our position."
A dietitian at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, Jacqui Lowdon, said
she and her colleagues would not be making any changes to their recommendations
based on advice from the Royal College of Midwives and the Centre for Preg-nancy
Nutrition, for a daily caffeine intake of not more than 300mg, as a result of
the Danish study.
British Coffee Association spokesman Roger Cook said pregnant women should not
be alarmed by the results of the latest study.
"The results of this study do not alter the advice given to pregnant women
on caffeine consumption during pregnancy by the Food Standards Agency which states
that 300mg caffeine, equivalent to three mugs or four cups of coffee per day,
is perfectly safe and will have no adverse effect on the mother or the foetus," he
said.
"Further, the Centre for Preg-nancy Nutrition states that it is perfectly
safe for a pregnant woman to drink up to four or five cups of coffee or tea a
day while pregnant or breastfeeding."
Madeleine
Brindley Madeleine.Brindley@Wme.Co.Uk, The Western Mail - The
National Newspaper Of Wales, Feb. 21, 2003
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