Genes reveal coffee is safe during pregnancy, study suggests

University of Queensland researchers have found enjoying a daily latte or a black coffee causes no increased risk to pregnancy.

Dr Gunn-Helen Moen, Dr Daniel Hwang and Caroline Brito Nunes from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience used genetics to analyse coffee drinking behaviour, and their findings show limited coffee consumption during pregnancy didn’t increase the risk of miscarriage, stillbirth or premature birth.

“Current World Health Organisation guidelines say pregnant women should drink less than 300mg of caffeine, or two to three cups per day,” Dr Moen said.

“But that’s based on observational studies where it’s difficult to separate coffee drinking from other risk factors like smoking, alcohol or poor diet.

“We wanted to find out if coffee alone really does increase the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, and the research shows this isn’t the case.”

Dr Hwang said coffee drinking behaviour is partly due to genetics, with a specific set of genetic variants affecting how much coffee we drink.

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