COLUMBUS – A new study shows pregnant mothers who drink moderate amounts of caffeine do not harm their baby’s intelligence or cause behavior problems or obesity.
The study from The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital that was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology and is one of the first to focus on how in utero caffeine exposure affects a child’s future intelligence and behavior .
“We did not find evidence of an adverse association of maternal pregnancy caffeine consumption with child cognition or behavior at 4 or 7 years of age,” said Dr. Mark Klebanoff, principal investigator in the Center for Perinatal Research at the center’s Research Institute and a faculty member at The Ohio State University College of Medicine.
The researchers considered a “moderate amount” to be about one or two cups of coffee a day.
They measured a marker of caffeine called paraxanthine at two points in pregnancy and compared those levels to the child’s IQ and behavior at 4 and 7 years of age and found there were no consistent patterns between maternal caffeine ingestion and the development and behavior of those children at those points in their lives.
Researchers analyzed paraxanthine in the blood of 2,197 expectant mothers who took part in the Collaborative Perinatal Project, conducted at multiple sites in the United States in 1959-74.
This was an era when coffee consumption during pregnancy was more prevalent than today were able to investigate a broader range of caffeine intake than if a similar study was done today.