caffeine

[hampdenpark27]

is anyone else out there struggling with the only 2 mugs of tea or coffee a day restriction?? I wasn't aware of this until i came across it in a baby magazine. Luckily i have managed to find some decaf t-bags. I don't remember this when i was expecting my first child 5 yrs ago.

I'm almost back to drinking what I feel like now!! After 20 weeks of refusing coffee, i now have coffee if i want a cup. The thing they say it causes is low birth weight, which doesn't sound the worst thing - but then I'm a first-timer, so maybe i'm not worrying enough! I do drink decaf tea a lot now, which seems to have the same effect as normal, and if I go to costa coffee, i'll drink caffeine there. Sometimes the restrictions are just so annoying - and as you say, changeable - my mum and mum-in-law didn't have any restrictions at all and they have 7 big strapppig children between them!

I thought it was because of an early mc risk ? I therefore cut right back for first 12 weeks and have then drank pretty much what I wanted since then (although I still don't go mad).

I did the same when pg with dd and she was nearly 10lb so I'm not worried about the low birth weight thing

I read low- birth weight - but maybe that's after 12 weeks. Am now 22 so glad to know i'm not causing miscarriage risk now.

Please don't worry about it too much. Although there have been links to low birth weight and miscarriage etc they are not a cause and effect scenario. In pregnancy you should eat a healthy diet, with a few modifications but my god if you have 3 cups of tea one day it really isn't the end of the world! Some of the women I look after survive on a diet of crisps, coke and fags (with the occasional mcdonalds for good luck). Don't forget there is caffine in fizzy drinks, chocolate etc too so it may be easier to cut back on those rather than your cup of coffee.

I did some research on this and some of the studies are a bit useless. For example one of the studies that linked miscarriage and caffeine was based on giving mice the equivalent of 100 cups of coffee a day for a human. All the same as I am mostly paranoid about everything I have cut down to a couple of cups a week.
On another note the times this week said if you take 10x the recommended vitamin D, you half the risk of miscarriage and have a baby twice as healthy (less likely to get infections).

Am ignoring this on the basis of 2 previous pgs that coped fine with my copious intake of coffee, diet coke and tea and still managed to come out at 8lbs 11oz and 8lbs 9oz respectively. Although I'm trying to cut back on the black coffee as I suspect that's the worst offender...

I thought the recommendation was 4 cups of tea (don't know about coffee as I don't drink it) and have been keeping to that except when I also fancy a glass of coke and then I have a bit less.

As reikizen states above, there are far worse things you could be putting in your body!

Right, time for a cuppa!