Numerous studies have shown moderate caffeine consumption to be healthy and medical experts have suggested that a couple cups of coffee enhances brain function, particularly among middle-aged and older adults.
But a new study suggests that women who are seeking to get pregnant might want to stay away from coffee and other caffeinated drinks, and their male partners should likely reduce their caffeine intake as well.
"Male preconception consumption of caffeinated beverages was just as strongly associated with pregnancy loss as females,” study author Germaine Buck Louis of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, told NBC.
The study found that men and women who drank three or more servings of caffeinated beverages a day were nearly twice as likely to miscarry in the early stages of pregnancy as others.
High caffeine consumption among women after conception also was linked to a high rate of miscarriages.
The sample size — 344 pregnancies — was not huge and it is not clear whether those who are big coffee or soda drinkers also tend to have other characteristics that would make miscarriages more likely.
But Louis insists there is a clear link between the behavior and the outcome.
"There's something about drinking caffeinated beverages that is associated with pregnancy loss," she said.
Caffeine wasn’t the only factor leading to miscarriages that the study discovered. It reaffirmed the well-established link between age and miscarriages, finding that women over 35 were were twice as likely to miscarry as younger women.
But on the bright side, it found that women who take multivitamins during pregnancy were significantly less likely to miscarry.
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