NUCCA News - Mom-To-Be's High Coffee Intake Linked to Stillbirth

Fri February 21, 2003 10:54 AM ET

By Keith Mulvihill

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Pregnant women who drink eight or more cups of coffee a day may triple their risk for having a stillborn child, scientists in Denmark announced Friday.

"We found that the risk of stillbirth increased with the number of cups of coffee per day during pregnancy," Dr. Kirsten Wisborg of Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health.

"Compared with women who did not drink coffee, women who drank 4-7 cups per day had an 80% increased risk of stillbirth, and women who drank eight or more cups had three times the risk," she added.

Studies on pregnant women's caffeine consumption have had conflicting results, with some finding that caffeine does hurt the fetus and others finding no effect. Moderate consumption of caffeine--such as one or two caffeine containing beverages a day--is generally considered safe.

To investigate, Wisborg's team evaluated coffee consumption during pregnancy, stillbirth and infant death among more than 18,000 pregnant women living in Denmark. Their findings are published in the February 22nd issue of the British Medical Journal.

According to Wisborg, women who drink a lot of coffee are also likely to be smokers and to have a high alcohol intake.

"However, adjusting for these factors changed the association between coffee and stillbirth only slightly," she said.

But after accounting for smoking habits, the researchers found no association between a woman's coffee consumption during pregnancy and infant death.

Wisborg noted that past studies have linked caffeine exposure in pregnancy to an increased risk of miscarriage and low birth weight.

"How to advise pregnant women or women planning to become pregnant is a very difficult question (but) based on our knowledge today it seems reasonable at least to reduce coffee intake during pregnancy to less than four cups per day," Wisborg concluded.

SOURCE: British Medical Journal 2003;326:420-422.

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=2267211