Well, here's some more news with which I could torture myself, were I so inclined. A new Kaiser Permanente study published today in the Amerian Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology says that "high doses" of caffeine during pregnancy can increase your chances of miscarriage:
Women who consumed 200 mg or more of caffeine per day (two or more cups of regular coffee or five 12-ounce cans of caffeinated soda) had twice the miscarriage risk as women who consumed no caffeine.
The increased risk of miscarriage appeared to be due to the caffeine itself, rather than other possible chemicals in coffee because caffeine intake from non-coffee sources such as caffeinated soda, tea and hot chocolate showed a similar increased risk of miscarriage.
In a word: crap. Let the inventory begin. I've been allowing myself that one small (often decaf) cappuccino in the morning, because I'm zombie-like without it, and with it, I find myself just a leeettle bit more focused. I maybe have a cup of tea in the afternoon; somewhere I heard that that was probably OK. I don't drink diet sodas (OK, well maybe a sip off my husband's here and there...but wait...I had a few slugs off a flat diet Pepsi yesterday afternoon while I was getting ready for a dinner party...).
Is this what's keeping me from getting pregnant? Did this cause my miscarriage in October 2007, and my two miscarriages in early 2004?
Oh, probably not. My advanced maternal age (love that term) is more probably the culprit. In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Dr. Aaron Caughey, a perinatologist at USCF, reminds us that the majority of miscarriages (up to 80%) are "due to chromosomal abnormalities that have nothing to do with the mother's behavior. The last thing women who have had miscarriages need to do is blame themselves, he said."
Oh, but we're so good at it.
Decaf it is.
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