International guidelines recommend that people limit the amount of coffee they drink during pregnancy. Drinking caffeine – a stimulant – during pregnancy has been linked to how the baby’s brain develops.
Some studies have shown that increased coffee consumption during pregnancy is associated with neurodevelopmental difficulties in the child. These may include features related to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), such as difficulties with language, motor skills, attention, hyperactivity, and impulsive behavior.
But is coffee the cause? New research aimed to clear up the sometimes confusing advice on drinking coffee during pregnancy.
Tens of thousands of pregnant women were studied over two decades.
The results showed – when other factors such as genes and income were taken into account – that there was no causal link between coffee consumption during pregnancy and the child’s neurodevelopmental difficulties. This means it is safe to continue drinking coffee with milk according to current recommendations.
Previous research has identified a link between coffee consumption during pregnancy and neurodevelopmental difficulties in the child. But caffeine could not be established as the direct cause.
Neurodevelopmental difficulties of the child
Biological changes during pregnancy reduce caffeine metabolism. This means that caffeine molecules and metabolites (molecules produced during the breakdown of caffeine) take longer to be eliminated from the body.
Additionally, previous studies have shown that caffeine and its byproducts can actually cross the placenta. The fetus does not have the necessary enzymes to eliminate them, and therefore it was thought that caffeine metabolites may have an impact on the developing baby.
However, it can be difficult to identify whether, in fact, coffee directly causes changes in fetal brain development. Pregnant women who drink coffee may differ from non-coffee drinkers in a number of other ways. And it could be these variables—not the coffee—that affect neurodevelopment.
These variables, known as “confounders,” could include how much women drink or smoke during pregnancy, or the parents’ income and education.
The study aimed to analyze the effect of coffee consumption on neurodevelopmental difficulties, isolated from these confounding factors.
Biological changes during pregnancy
We know that genes play a role in the number of cups of coffee a person consumes per day. The study used genetics to compare the development of children whose mothers had and did not have genes linked to increased coffee consumption.
The study looked at tens of thousands of families registered in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study. All pregnant women in Norway between 1999 and 2008 were invited to participate, and 58,694 women took part with their child.
Parents reported how much coffee they drank before and during pregnancy. The mothers also completed questionnaires about their child’s neurodevelopmental traits between the ages of six months and eight years. Parents and children also provided genetic samples. This allowed us to control for genetic variants shared between mother and child and to isolate coffee drinking behavior.
What did the study find?
The researchers were able to analyze causality by this method of adjusting for potential environmental confounders (mother who smokes or drinks alcohol, parents’ education and income).
The results showed no strong causal link between increased maternal coffee consumption and children’s neurodevelopmental difficulties.
The difference between the current findings and those of previous studies may be explained by the fact that the work separated the effect of coffee from the effect of other variables, as well as genetic predisposition to neurodevelopmental conditions, they write ScienceAlert.
However, the study has limitations. Importantly, we were only able to rule out strong effects of coffee on neurodevelopmental difficulties, and small effects may exist.
Only the neurodevelopmental traits of the offspring were investigated, and coffee consumption during pregnancy could impact the mother or child in other ways.
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Source: www.descopera.ro
