Help! Got accidental coffee jitters when 12 weeks pregnant

[Rumpledfaceskin]

Really worried. Have had awful sickness and been off tea/coffee, so no caffeine until now. Had a friend round this morning so thought I’d try a decaf instant coffe from our jar marked decaf. Went down ok so I thought I’d have another, drank about 1 and a half small cups. An hour later and I’m shaking, feeling faint, dizzy. Thought it might be low blood sugar so had something to eat. Anyway the effect lasted about 4 hours!! I think it must have been normal coffee in the jar. I’m really worried I’ve harmed my baby, realise I’m probably being silly but 8 can’t believe how bad it made me feel. Had my scan yesterday so it feels so real now. Has anyone else ever accidentally OD on caffeine whilst pregnant?

Even if it was normal coffee, 2.5 cups wouldn't do any harm. There's probably more caffeine in the Lucozade they make you drink for the diabetes test! Don't worry.

1 and a half small cups of coffee isn't even more caffeine than they recommend in a day. I've just found this on the NHS website: "he newspaper says that new research has led the UK Food Standards Agency to reduce its maximum recommended daily caffeine intake during pregnancy to 200 mg, roughly the amount in two cups of instant coffee." And you only had 1 and a half small cups, which is less than that! I'd be saying not to worry regardless of you having too much as it's only a guide and unless you're drinking loads of caffeine every day for prolonged periods of time I'm sure you'd be absolutely fine, but you haven't even gone over the guidelines so really you need to relax!

I think you may just have had a pregnancy related feeling rubbish moment

Thanks for replies. I wouldn’t normally be worried but it’s that I felt such ill effects from it. It was horrible. My tolerance for caffeine has obviously gone down to zero I’m assuming your tolerance doesn’t actually matter as the same amount of caffeine would cross the placenta even if you had higher tolerance?

Caffeine in excess causes low birth weight. And that would be excessive every day over an entire pregnancy not just once! You're maybe just more sensitive to caffeine since you've had so little for the last few weeks! Don't panic!

There's about 80 mg of caffeine in an average cup of instant coffee- you should therefore be well under the daily maximum of 200 mg. Relax!

You should be absolutely fine. My midwife even said it's okay even if you go slightly over the 200mg limit occasionally, as long as it IS just occasionally.

I wouldn't worry too much, I used to drink a LOT of tea before finding out I was pregnant and have since gone off of it completely. I was suffering bad headaches from about 16 weeks and the only thing that works to stop them is full fat coke. So I am pretty sure it was more my going-cold-turkey off of caffeine that was the problem. So now I have 1 or 2 cans of coke a day with no adverse effects