There’s some good news for pregnant coffee drinkers: According to studies, using a small amount of caffeine while pregnant may assist in lowering the risk of gestational diabetes.
“While we were not able to study the association of consumption above the recommended limit, we now know that low-to-moderate caffeine is not associated with an increased risk of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, or hypertension for expecting mothers,” said research lead author Stefanie Hinkle, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Epidemiology at Penn.
No Danger to Maternal Health from Moderate Caffeine Intake
Among the females who are pregnant from various areas and love to consume coffee, one research is much in favor of them. As per the research, there is no harm to their health or the baby if they consume coffee to a moderate level during pregnancy also.
However, here one must note the term moderate and do not go for an increased level, said one of the experts from the research team that has got the research done.
Researchers looked at prospective data from 2,529 pregnant women who were enrolled in the Human Development (NICHD) Fetal Growth Studies-Singleton Cohort at 12 clinical locations across the United States between 2009 and 2013.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends that pregnant women consume no more than 200 mg of caffeine per day (about two six-ounce cups). The guidelines are based on research that suggests greater caffeine levels may be linked to pregnancy loss and fetal growth. However, there is still a scarcity of information about the relationship between caffeine and maternal health outcomes.
The researchers discovered that caffeine use between 10 and 13 weeks of pregnancy did not affect the risk of gestational diabetes. Caffeine consumption of up to 100 mg per day during the second trimester was linked to a 47 percent lower incidence of diabetes. Blood pressure, preeclampsia, and hypertension were not significantly different between individuals who drank caffeine during pregnancy and those who did not.
Women reported their weekly consumption of caffeinated coffee, caffeinated tea, soda, and energy drinks at the time of enrolment and each subsequent office visit. Caffeine levels in the subjects’ plasma were also measured at 10 to 13 weeks into their pregnancies. The researchers next compared their caffeine intake to three key outcomes: gestational diabetes, gestational hypertension, and preeclampsia.
The findings, according to the researchers, are in line with previous research that has linked caffeine to improved energy balance and lower fat mass. They also claim they can’t rule out the possibility that these results are attributable to other components of coffee and tea, such as phytochemicals, which may affect inflammation and insulin resistance, lowering the risk of gestational diabetes.
According to Hinkle, previous research from the same group has linked coffee consumption during pregnancy, even at amounts lower than the prescribed 200 mg per day, to reduced neonatal anthropometric measurements.
“It would not be advised for women who are non-drinkers to initiate caffeinated beverage consumption to lower gestational diabetes risk,” she said. “But our findings may provide some reassurance to women who already are consuming low to moderate levels of caffeine that such consumption likely will not increase their maternal health risks.”
Caffeine is the most commonly used psychoactive substance on the planet. Caffeine is found naturally in coffee, tea, and chocolate. Arousal, attentiveness, vigor, and an enhanced mood are all promoted by synthetic caffeine. Over the last decade, health authorities and regulatory organizations have become more concerned about overall caffeine use and its possible cumulative effects on behavior and physiology due to the introduction of new caffeine-containing food products and changes in consumption patterns of more conventional sources of caffeine.
