Is caffiene really that big if a problem?

[24hourM0MMY]

I know that too much is defo a bad idea, but for those who have given up completely, did you have a doctor tell you to cut it out or was it a personal choice? I'm currently 6 weeks and I cannot for the life of me stop that first morning cup of coffee. The rest if the day, i have no problem staying away. Is it really linked to early misscarriages?

Avid tea-drinker here too! I've made the choice to give up altogether and switch to decaf/green teas etc. The health benefits are definitely noticeable, I don't get the 11am slump after my morning tea! Lol. Also read that chocolate contains a lot of caffeine too so have TRIED my best to give this up, but being pregnant, that's the first thing i've always craved!!

Do find there's quite a discrepancy in what's actually okay. Whilst my sister was pregnant (2006-7) she was allowed by the MW 12 cups of tea a day, when I became pregnant for the first time, I was allowed 4-5 cups, now it's gone to 2, but have friends who are pregnant that have been told not to worry too much about the caffeine intake (obviously within reason and not to go chugging red bull)! Unsure as to how there can be so many different answers to one question, feel there should be a blanket response within all MW's as sometimes us pregnant ladies can be suggestible/worry!! :)

the studies are conflicting - for example, this one
obgyn.mcw.edu/wp-content/uploads/9-Oster_Emily-Weng-et-al-2007-Maternal-caffeine-consumption-during-pregnancy-and-the-risk-of-miscarriage.pdf
found that miscarriage risk went from 12% for women who did not consume any caffeine at all to 25% for women who had over 200mg.

Then again, another found that caffeine did not make any difference. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18091004

To me it's just a matter of being all-around healthy during pregnancy. A bit of tea or coffee won't make a huge difference. But even not being pregnant, drinking bottles and bottles of caffeinated soda or energy drinks (with sugar or sweeteners) isn't good for you. So that's the type of habit I'd drop while PG.

I'm sensitive to caffeine so only ever had one coffee and if really flagging one tea a day, otherwise anything else was decaf or herbal. I've gone 100% to decaf since finding out. To be fair, I've also been nearly catatonic with exhaustion since my BFP as well. Ah, the joys of pregnancy...

Hazle The rate of egg - issue and implantation - issue MCS are higher than 12% in the first place. The biggest factors being fertility age (as opposed to actual age).

Consider this

If, when pregnant, these scenarios which can be applied to just about anything.

X damages baby, you don't do X, baby is not affected by X
X damages baby, you do X, baby is affected by X
X does not damage baby, you don't do X, baby is not affected by X
X does not damage baby, you do X, baby is not affected by X

so 4 outcomes, 3 of which have the baby being ok

in all things ask yourself, are you happy with the possibility of the outcome being the negative one. Abstinence (whilst many people will say 'my baby was fine and i did X) is the only way to guarantee that X does not affect your child

As a midwife I have seen newborn babies withdrawing from mums heavy caffeine consumption.
Think about you would feel going totally cold turkey from caffeine? Headache, cranky, jittery. All makes for a very unsettled newborn.

The op is talking about one cup of coffee in the morning, hardly heavy consumption.

'abstinence' would include no chocolate

I think this mindset of 'think how you would feel if something goes wrong' is damaging. The same can be applied to lots of day to day things. As long as you are living well, watching the caffeine intake as part of a healthy lifestyle there is nothing to feel bad about. Avoid strong coffee, red bull is a no.

The miscarriage stuff is impossible to quantify because if someone is going to miscarry they are less likely to have ms. Many people can't face tea in the first trimester at all.

At the very least, you can't make the argument that people often make about alcohol, how "you wouldn't give your baby booze the day after birth, why would you the day before".

Caffeine is actually used to treat some problems in premature babies. I think they give them a caffeine IV. I am wondering what I'd have to do to get one of those for myself after the baby is born. I was born a little before my due date, and I'm CLEARLY still having problems that caffeine could help with...

In this pregnancy I haven't actually been asked about my caffeine consumption. Only asked about drugs, alcohol and tobacco all of which I don't use apart from the odd paracetamol. I'm not saying it's completely unharmful of course loads would be damaging, but I also find it damaging constantly scaremongering pregnant women. A lot of miscarriages happen because something is wrong with the baby not because the mum had an extra coffee

Pbwer that's a really good explanation ... of prenatal anxiety and/or blame culture.

Unless you have done a medical research project you don't know the risk so your scenarios mean precisely nothing.

I could refer it to travelling by tube (as I did) and develop a weird phobia.

If the medical advice is that moderate consumption is ok you will NOT increase safety proportionally by taking it to the extreme. That's not how the science works, that's not how probability works, and that is incredibly psychologically harmful should a woman miscarry.
It's also how horrible old wives tales like "you just can't carry boys" (thinking of a frightened poster on another thread) happen ... One tragedy + "all or nothing" logic.

Glitz not just "a lot" ... over 90% happen because there's something amiss in the genetic transfer or the egg/sperm didn't quite meet or impant properly.
Over 90%.

The rest ... mostly medical issues such as sticky blood, diabetes, thyroid (which we can now medicate thankfully).

Its actually really really difficult to cause a miscarriage by anything you do, or consume.
People are actually quite good at spotting real life cause and effect (as opposed to theoretical risk perception, which they are terrible at). If it was likely that large amounts of coffee caused a miscarriage, women would have worked out to drink gallons of espresso to deal with unwanted pregnancies, rather than gin and hot baths (which also doesn't work) etc.

There always came a point when morning sickness really kicked in when I couldn't stand the smell of coffee and I avoided it for that reason.

I still had recurring miscarriages. I tore myself up trying to figure out what I had been doing wrong to cause the MCs and was reassured by my (American) doctor who kindly took the time to sit me down and talk about the effect on me of all that loss. As Squizita and others have said, miscarriage just happens.

I know how I felt when 'something went wrong' and it is not a nice thing to tell another woman to think about how she might feel in that situation, when what she is doing or eating or drinking is actually most likely completely harmless. There is no need to pile on the guilt or the anxiety -- it does make women feel terribly restricted, and this may contribute to PND insofar as women may feel they have become nothing but a really dangerous vessel for their baby with their own life taking a back seat.

Women are usually being given advice by their HCP while pregnant and members of the public really shouldn't be chipping in even if they think they are being helpful.

Obv if you know someone who drinks or smokes or uses drugs you might want to nudge them towards help, but I think it's best to butt out of the lives of 99.9% of pregnant women.

I think the recommended amount is 200mg, but I might be wrong.
I have seen women addicted to energy drinks such as red bull, diet drinks or heavy tea drinkers.
This is quite good.

www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/limit-caffeine-during-pregnancy.aspx?CategoryID=54&SubCategoryID=130

Tosh.

I enjoyed 2-3 cups a day during my pregnancies, and while breastfeeding.

Lilliput if you are a midwife, I think your first post is really irresponsible. It's utterly scaremongering and adds to the paranoia already seen on this thread. Too much of anything isn't good for anybody - even too much fruit and veg would have a terrible effect on your digestive system! A heavy addiction isn't the same as a moderate caffeine intake within the recommended guidelines.

I'm not scare mongering just stating what I have seen from experience and adding to the debate and certainly moving it away from the miscarriage guilt discussion.
Everything is about informed choice. Consume caffeine or don't consume caffeine as long as you are informed about pros and cons. Same with smoking, alcohol, unpasteurised cheese etc etc.

This is my theory on caffeine whilst pregnant; when babies of heroin addicts are born, they have a terribly tough time because they are addicted to the drug themselves and therefore suffer terrible withdrawal symptoms. caffeine is a drug. True it is not as damaging as heroin but it is addictive. And if you are addicted to it you also suffer withdrawal symptoms. Me, I get crabby, and get a headache. So when I was pregnant I realised that if I am addicted, and I continue to 'feed' my addiction then so will my unborn baby be addicted. Because the drug gets into them too. And I figured that I would do absolutely anything to have an easier time of it once my baby was born because I was under no illusion about how hard it was going to be, without adding anything that might cause the baby to be less likely to settle, or to be more crabby. So I gave up completely.

You're not stating anything useful. You reckon you have seen newborns with caffiene withdrawal? How much caffiene did the mothers consume? In what form? For how much of their pregnancy? How many newborns did you see? How and when were they tested for caffiene levels?

Unless you have the answers to all of these questions you have not added any information to anyone's choices.

That's basically what I was getting at but you put it much better me Elsa.

I don't understand why you are being so attacking.

Elsa,your qualifications to make those conclusions are.....?