A team of researchers working at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif. concluded that a daily habit of drinking 200 milligrams of caffeine--about two cups of coffee--significantly increases the risk of miscarriage. It's about the caffeine more than it's about the coffee. The researchers say it didn't matter what the source of caffeine was: sodas, tea or coffee; just that once pregnant women crossed the 200 mg threshold, their pregnancy became in danger. The following two paragraphs are from the story which appeared on MSNBC:

In the study, published in Monday’s issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Li's team interviewed 1,063 women in the San Francisco area who became pregnant between 1996 and 1998 about their caffeine intake. While 164 of the women drank 200 mg of caffeine or more daily, 635 consumed some caffeine but less than 200 mg. The remaining 264 women said they didn’t consume any caffeine.

Overall, 172 of the women suffered a miscarriage. The risk of a miscarriage was more than double in women who consumed 200 mg or more of caffeine, with 25 percent suffering a miscarriage compared to just 12 percent of women who didn't consume caffeine. The low-caffeine drinkers also appeared to have an elevated risk of miscarriage, but this trend wasn't statistically significant, meaning the researchers could not rule out that it was merely due to chance.

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Labels: food, health, parenting, study