Calm me down - Diet Coke in pregnancy

[Iworryabouteverything]

I happened across an article earlier that said aspartame in pregnancy massively raises the risk of development problems in baby boys (specifically autism). I had loads in pregnancy, I had HG and it was all I could keep down at one time, and this research hadn’t come out then. I’m a worrier anyway and am now panicking about my 9 month old. Looking for ‘I drank it every day and my sons are fine’ stories

I don't see how you "happened upon" a single flawed small scale study that was published months ago unless you were trawling for stuff to worry about. Which I assume is why you refused to link it.

The study itself says "These associations do not prove causality". The study's funding should also tell you something.

Stop doing that to yourself. It's not healthy.

The review I just read of this research said Researchers emphasized that their findings don’t prove causality and called for further research to find conclusive evidence.

Your son could have autism. You would never get an answer to the question 'why'.

We can't control everything. We can only follow the advice available at the time.

I think you have to try to put this out of your mind, I know that is hard, but just think about how much you love your son today.

It maybe that.
But equally

• more ND mums may drink it.

More overweight people might or who aim to control wright It might affect glucose control

I cant remember if i did drink any in pg. But i was probaboy avoiding caffeine anyway. Both mine are ND.
I probably did while bf and did do in the years fpbefore getting pg.

Maybe it depletes some vitamins?

I can Google anything and it'll come up.

Your baby will be absolutely fine.

Also just to point out that the study says it was associated with 3x increased incidence of ASD- the baseline level of ASD in the population is something like around 2% of people iirc, so 3 times
more likely still only gives you a risk of 6%.
So even IF the study proved causality (which it doesn’t) drinking Diet Coke daily would still only give you a 6% chance of having a child with ASD, and 94% chance they’re neurotypical.

And even IF it proved causality and IF your child was in that 6%, that still doesn’t mean they’d necessarily be anything other than a happy and successful person. So, as my grandma would say, why borrow trouble?

The prevalence of autism in boys in the general population is 4 in 100, so even if the risk was tripled by consuming aspartame as the (very small) study suggests, your baby would still be very unlikely to be autistic.

When pregnant, I terrified myself with a study about the effects of consuming liquorice during pregnancy on IQ (liquorice is a big thing in Scandinavia and some big studies have been done on it) and many others. It's hard not to if you're that way inclined but it does make for a very stressful pregnancy! Aspartame has been certified as safe to consume by the EU (and therefore the UK) and the NHS does not advise pregnant women to avoid it. At some point you have to give yourself a break and trust the advice, OP

There is absolutely no evidence of causality between autism and anything consumed in pregnancy.

All the evidence we have says that it's genetic, not environmental.

Basically, don't worry about it. A correlation in a small sample size means absolutely nothing. Correlation is not causation.

I drank it every day my boys are 7 and 12 and as neurotypical as they come.

Can autistic children not be ‘geniuses’?

OP, this is just one, very low quality study for the following reasons:

• small sample size
• not peer reviewed
• relied on mother’s memory of intake of diet sodas
• researchers did not confirm whether either parent was autistic (considering the large generic component of autism)

Please rest easy and forget about it. Without being able to drink alcohol, can you imagine how many women are chugging the Diet Coke during pregnancy? Quite a lot!

I drank loads while pregnant and my son is autistic.

But since his diagnosis it's become increasingly clear that I probably am too.
And my dad.
And his youngest brother (both in their 60s)
I'm on the fence with their father.

Diet Coke wasn't released till 1982 so couldn't be responsible for most of those.

@Didimum Of course they can, I phrased that very badly. Apologies if it caused offence. I was trying to reassure the OP that DS has zero developmental delays of any sort but it came out badly.

Not sure of the research, or if there are statistics to back this up, but my anecdata is that neurodivergent people tend to like drinking Diet Coke more than NT, and also carry the genes for autism, so I wouldn't be sure that the correlation means one thing caused the other.

Why should the study's funding tell you something?

It's funded jointly by an autism charity and a government public health body. I don't see what either of those have to gain from making this up.

An observational study never proves causality. That doesn't mean there is no link although there could be many confounders.

We already know aspartame is carcinogenic and generally bad for health. I think it's bonkers that the government actively encourages manufacturers to put it in drinks. This will doubtless come back and bite them at a later date. I guess maybe obesity is even worse - although the evidence shows that replacing coke with diet coke doesn't result in weight loss. Anyway that's not the point. I think pregnant women (and everyone else) would be well advised to limit fizzy drink intake.

A few people on this thread giving anecdotes doesn't give any useful information. My granddad smoked 20 a day and lived to be 92. I also know someone who never smoked and died of lung cancer aged 42. Draw your own conclusions.

Oh damn, so THAT's why DD is autistic.

Good to know 😂

I drank tons of squash and a bit of Diet Coke- no autistic children (but please be assured that it isn’t the worst thing a child could be).

356 isn't that small a sample size.

The journal is peer reviewed and has an impact factor of 5 which is considered good.

The other two concerns are valid

I didn't suggest it was fabricated, I suggested that the funding for this tiny flawed study was relevant to evaluating it as a source.

They basically just conducted some shoddy surveys to get press coverage of their call for additional research funding for autism.

If you're evaluating whether this Google result is worth spending an evening panicking about, I think that's one of several relevant factors.

Mine are adults and completely normal and I drank fizzy drinks all the time when I was pregnant.

I drank diet coke (3-4 cans a day) throughout my first two pregnancies. For my third pregnancy I could only stomach bitter lemon and ice cold water (HG). It is my third child who has an alphabet soup of severe neurological conditions including autism. 🤷‍♀️

Drank it loads while pregnant. DD is 28 now and perfect!

I'm a health scientist and I can reiterate that this study - a case-control study (low quality), a too-small sample size to evidence causation, published in an MDPI journal (which are classed as predatory) - is essentially 'meh'. Scientific term.

I really wish they wouldn't release these sorts of thing about dangers in pregnancy, so many women end up being petrified completely unnecessarily. I was absolutely convinced my child was going to be autistic because I'd taken paracetamol in pregnancy because of a study-she's not. And I drank pints of Diet Coke also!

While the causes of neurodivergence are far from understood, what it does seem like is genetics are a strong influence vs external influences. Perhaps discuss it with your health visitor if you're really worried but this really isn't something to worry about x

I drab it daily with both of mine and both are well ahead of their peers academically. Don’t worry OP xx

Please stop worrying. There's aspartame in loads of things, minimal amounts that won't hurt baby.

I drank nothing but water and my 2 year old is waiting to be assessed for autism. Is the water to blame?