Doctors recommend limiting caffeine intake to 200 mg per day [1]. This rule is based more on tradition than science. Let’s look into it.
How many cups of coffee equals 200 mg of caffeine?
It's important to understand that coffee isn’t the only source of caffeine. You can get 200 mg of caffeine from:
· One cup of regular coffee
· Two cups of instant coffee
· Two cups of tea
· Five cans of cola
· 400 g of dark chocolate [2].
However, in the last two examples, the sugar content is more of a concern than the caffeine.
Why is coffee harmful during pregnancy?
In the past, it was thought that drinking coffee could lead to early miscarriage, premature birth, and low birth weight. However, an analysis of scientific publications on this topic showed [3] that popular ideas about the dangers of coffee are greatly exaggerated. Women who drank more than three cups of coffee a day were as likely to have full-term pregnancies and babies with healthy birth weights as those who deliberately gave up coffee during pregnancy.
That doesn't mean you can drink unlimited amounts of coffee while expecting. Too much caffeine can lead to problems with sleep, make nausea worse, and accelerate your heart rate. Coffee is also a powerful diuretic [4]. So don’t overdo it with coffee, tea, soda, or chocolate.
Can coffee affect the health of my baby?
Early research regarding the effects of caffeine suggested that babies born to mothers who had more than 900 mg of coffee per day (that is a lot of coffee!), had an increased chance of developing an illness. But it was later revealed that, in the studies, only heavy smokers drank that amount of coffee! So dangers traditionally attributed to coffee were related to cigarettes [5].
It is worth mentioning that, while pregnant, your taste for coffee might change. Many expectant mothers don’t give up coffee because they believe it may be harmful but because it makes them nauseous!
