Coffee addiction is safe for expectant mothers

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Researchers from the University of Queensland proved that daily consumption of latte or black coffee does not increase risks during pregnancy. And this means that expectant mothers can safely consume their favorite drink.

Coffee does not increase such dangers during pregnancy as miscarriages, premature births or even stillbirths. Today, there are recommendations from the World Health Organization that indicate that pregnant women should consume no more than 300 mg of caffeine, or two to three cups per day.

However, this advice is based on observational studies in which there was enough it is difficult to determine what exactly poses a danger to pregnant women – coffee, or other risk factors such as smoking, poor diet or alcoholic beverages.

And now the researchers wanted to find out whether coffee itself really increases the risk adverse pregnancy outcome, isn't it? The impact of coffee consumption is partly due to genetics – a set of genetic variants that influence how much coffee we need.

The study found that these variants not only affect coffee consumption in the general population, but and among pregnant women. Using so-called Mendelian randomization, using 8 genetic variants predicting the behavior of pregnant women in relation to coffee, the scientists investigated whether these variants were associated with the outcome of the birth.

Because it was not possible to force a group of expectant mothers to consume much more coffee than is allowed, used a genetic analysis that mimicked a randomized controlled trial. It showed that coffee drinkers did not have an increased risk of miscarriage, stillbirth, or premature birth.