MOMS-TO-BE CAN HAVE A CUP OF COFFEE, STUDY SAYS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 3, 1993                   TAG: 9302030023
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
MOMS-TO-BE CAN HAVE A CUP OF COFFEE, STUDY SAYS
Pregnant women concerned that a morning cup of coffee may be harmful to the fetus are worrying needlessly, researchers at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development say.
The researchers found that moderate consumption of caffeine - three or fewer eight-ounce cups of coffee a day, for example - did not increase the risk of miscarriage, retard fetal growth or reduce head circumference.
"Very few women in our study consumed more than 300 milligrams of caffeine per day, so we cannot address the safety of very high doses," said Dr. James L. Mills, a researcher at the institute in Bethesda, Md., who was the primary author of the study.
"What our work demonstrates is that a woman who drinks a few cups of coffee or tea, or several cans of cola a day, is not at higher risk for having a miscarriage or a growth-retarded baby," he said.
The report appears in today's issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study, which was conducted from 1980 to 1985, involved 431 women who made up the nondiabetic control population for a larger study of the effects of diabetes on early pregnancy.
Explaining the eight-year delay between the research and publication, Mills said that only after publishing the results of the diabetes study did the researchers begin to analyze the caffeine data.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB