A new study has shown that pregnant women who take even small amounts of caffeine during their pregnancy run the risk of having a miscarriage. As a matter of fact, the study by the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research has statistics that how that the risk almost doubles the risk. This is compared to women who abstain from caffeine. Caffeine in normally taken as coffee, tea, hot chocolate or caffeinated soft drinks. Although there have been many studies linking caffeine and miscarriages in recent years, this newest research is considered

Women who drink even moderate amounts of caffeine during pregnancy — whether from coffee, tea, caffeinated soft drinks or hot chocolate — have almost double the risk of miscarriage compared to women who stay away from such drinks.

The link between caffeine and the risk for miscarriage is not new. In fact, there have been more than a dozen studies on the issue in recent years.

This study, from the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, is making more people sit up and notice, mainly because it was thoroughly controlled for studying morning sickness. The previous results were unreliable because women who became nauseous early in their pregnancy by coffee usually choose to avoid coffee, thus making those studies unreliable.

This study of over 1,000 pregnant women in San Francisco, was composed of women who never changed there caffeine intake during all stages of their pregnancies Then the first 20 weeks of pregnancy was individually studied and it found that women who drank consumed 200 mg or more of caffeine per day had tide the miscarriage risk as the non caffeine drinkers.

200 grams of caffeine is found in 10 ounces of coffee - around two cups of regular coffee, 25 ounces of tea, or five 12-ounce cans of caffeinated pop.

Further, it was found that each drink showed a once the 200 mg of caffeine level was reached a similar increased risk of miscarriage occurred. This suggests that caffeine is the cause of the miscarriages, not other chemicals in coffee.

Doctors are not sure exactly why this occurs, but it is known that caffeine crosses through the placenta to the fetus, and it is also known that due to a fetus’ underdeveloped metabolic system, caffeine is difficult for the fetus to metabolize.

Caffeine is also thought to influence cell development and decrease placental blood flow

Although it is not clear exactly why caffeine can cause the miscarriages, the word is that during pregnancy women should abstain from any caffeine.

Click here to read more about coffee: the good and the bad.