Maternal Caffeine intake during pregnancy in Spain and risk to embryo/fetal development

Teratología ClínicaCaffeine is the most used psychoactive substance in the world. The objectives of this work are to study the consumption of caffeine during gestation in our country and its impact on weight, height and head circumference of newborns and analyze the risk for congenital malformations in the exposed newborns during the fi rst trimester of pregnancy. We used the data of the ECEMC (Spanish Collaborative Study of Congenital Malformations) from 1987 to 2008. In our country 56.18% of pregnant women consume beverages containing caffeine. During the analyzed period, coffee consumption decreased, while caffeinated soft drink and tea consumption increased. We observed no consistent association between caffeine intake and foetal growth, once we stratifi ed by smoking, except a very small, but signifi cant, decreasing on height. In the case-control study, we selected 15 entities of congenital defects to be analyzed. We did not observe any signifi cant teratogenic effect. In conclusion, in spite of the lack of correlation between caffeine and congenital malformations found in our study, due to the other pharmacological effects of caffeine (increased heart rate, insomnia, and so on) coupled with the uncertainty of the effects in high doses, we must emphasize that our recommendation is that women restrict as much as possible the intake of caffeine, or keep it below 200 mg / day (this is around two normal cup of coffee) during the time women attempt to become pregnant and during pregnancy.N