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caffeine and fertility/pregnancy - MotheringDotCommunity Forums

Even though we haven't begun ttc yet (probably next cycle) i have begun readying my body... And something i've been wondering about is coffee! When we were having a hard time conceiving Milos I was off caffeine altogether.

Then only in my 2nd and 3d trimester did i allow myself to have an occasional decaf. In these last weeks i've been enjoying my decaf again and wondering if i really need to put it down when we begin ttc? Sometimes i feel like i made myself so nuts!

With everything little thing last time and that's what delayed conception.

You know the annoying advice of "just relax and it will happen" UGH!

But ultimately i think that's what happened! i remember every period while we were ttc felt like a loss and i grieved but now i really am grieving!

So i am feeling afraid of beginning again and i want to be gentle with myself if i can and just enjoy a darned cup of decaf! Which is the lesser evil?

Caffeine’s effect on my fertility or the vigilant mania of a woman trying too hard to get pregnant?!

Quote: : Which is the lesser evil?

Caffeine’s effect on my fertility or the vigilant mania of a woman trying too hard to get pregnant?!

If I ever figure out the answer to that, I'll give it to you for free but pack it up and sell it to the rest of the world. I've been pondering coffee for awhile.

I'm a former 2 pot a day drinker who worked at a coffee shop when I got pregnant with DD#1.

I didn't give up caffeine with my son (but cut way down). With my recent pregnancy I said "I'm not going to worry about stuff" and I ate lunchmeat and drank caffeinated coffee.

We lost the pregnancy and I can't help but wonder.

. . how much did my nonchalance contribute to it?

Probably not at all.

I don't know. But I think I'm giving it up.

For my own sanity.

Because I think I'll be less sane if I don't and something happened than I would be if I did. Which is a very long way of saying "I don't know" and perhaps "I'm totally insane."

I'm not sure about the ttc part (that part I've never *actually* done.

All my pregnancies were accidental.

Just popped over from the main page.) but current research shows no ill effects on pregnancy from a cup or two of coffee a day during pregnancy (In the last 2 trimsters, IIRC) though there appeared to be a slight increase in incidents when large amounts of caffeine were consumed.

I guess it's up to your better judgement, but I see no reason that small amounts of caffeine would affect your ttc unless you are already having severe problems. I am a bit paranoid though just because my second loss (10 week mc) happened after drinking coffee.

It probably had nothing to do with it, but it's just one of those guilt things.

FWIW I drank coffee tons when I was pregnant with DD, and she was healthy in utero (her stillbirth was due to cord compression, so nothing to do with the coffee, obviously).

I did drink coffee with DS, but not as much as I usually do.

I suspect that stressing out about every little thing would be far more harmful to your chances of conceiving than one cup of coffee per day.

I know at least that stressing is the direct cause of my period being late when it is Like a pp said, the current research says that one cup or less of coffee per day has no effect on miscarriage, so you would think it wouldn't have an effect on fertility either?

Of course I'm sure that every body reacts differently too...

Some people are just really sensitive to caffeine, others not so much. I know when I had an early miscarriage I hadn't touched coffee for months.

If it's really difficult and stressful for you not to drink coffee, I would say just let yourself have a cup...

Frontierpsych & ursusarctos: I'm not familiar with any study that says 1 cup or less has no effect on miscarriage.

From what I see, 2 cups or more per day doubles the risk of miscarriage, but it doesn't follow that less is risk free. OP, I really don't think an occasional cup of decaf is probably much to worry about.

I'm of the opinion that it's worse to stress out about every little thing than to ingest small amounts of bad stuff.

I'm a total stress case too, so i understand, but i like to remember that our parents/grandparents generation and women in europe didn't change their lifestyles too much during pregnancy and usually had perfectly healthy babies.

Nowadays we are somewhat burdened with too much information.

We know that alcohol, caffeine, smoking, licorice, excess heat, etc.

Etc. can be harmful to a developing child.

So we give up all our vices for our babies.

And perhaps we've gone overboard to the point of making pregnancy a stressful time instead of a joyful one.

I've actually decided to be a bit more laid back this time around for my own level-headedness.

I miss coffee. so when my husband has a cup, i steal a few sips.

Its enough to satisfy.

I'll have a small glass of red wine maybe once a week, or just a sip here and there.

It makes me feel like i'm living my normal life and not obsessed w/ being pregnant (cuz thinking about my pregnancy makes me a bit stressed out.) so overall i'm just trying to remember, BREATHE....

Quote: : frontierpsych & ursusarctos: I'm not familiar with any study that says 1 cup or less has no effect on miscarriage.

From what I see, 2 cups or more per day doubles the risk of miscarriage, but it doesn't follow that less is risk free.

You know, you're right.

I was referring to a news article from about a year ago that summarized a study that had recently been done.

Here is a link to one of the many articles that handled the study: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=18232044 .

It seems that the study saw an increase in miscarriage rate with an intake of 200 mg of caffeine or more per day, but didn't have anything to say about lesser amounts.

I just inferred that since they didn't report an increase in miscarriages until 200 mg that meant there weren't any relevant effects under 200 mg.

But that's not necessarily the case. What maemaemama said though about our grandparents not cutting anything out during pregnancy...

I'm reading a novel right now that was written in the 60s and takes place in the 30s, and it has the main character and her friends (middle class, white, privileged) chain smoking, taking hot baths, and drinking throughout their pregnancies with the full approval of their doctors and no ill effects .

Obviously this is a novel, but I think it reflects the standard pregnancy behavior of the time pretty accurately.

We know now that smoking and drinking are bad, but the generation of women from the 20s through the 70s (when smoking and drinking had become socially acceptable for women) did it while pregnant and seemed to produce mostly healthy children (NOT condoning those things or saying they are risk free, just pointing out that the risk is obviously not that huge).

Certainly the risk from a cup of coffee (or decaf, even better!) is not that high...

Not enough to worry about anyway, imo.

Though it's also true that caffeine is just another drug that our systems could probably do without anyway, and I'll probably cut out coffee like now since we decided to start being open to babies this cycle Just have to get through my exam on Wednesday first

Thanks for all of your thoughts i guess i am really curious about fertility and caffeine not pregnancy and caffeine IF i am lucky enough to get pregnant i can forgo any pleasure for that pleasure of nurturing a bun in my oven until then... i don't want to be a stress case that every little thing i do will have an ill effect on my odds of conception but because i know that caffeine can rob your body of nutrients and necessary hydration, i wonder which is worse? i guess your answers remind me moderation and mindfulness in all things is crucial! ps.

Frontierpsych, very interesting?

I had a chemical pregnancy that for the longest time i thought i lost the little embryonic cluster due to a cup of coffee, hmmm?

Quote: : i guess i am really curious about fertility and caffeine not pregnancy and caffeine I don't know that you can untangle the two due to very early miscarriage.

If a pregnancy is lost before it is detected, is it miscarriage or infertility?

Quote: : i've actually decided to be a bit more laid back this time around for my own level-headedness.

I miss coffee. so when my husband has a cup, i steal a few sips.

Its enough to satisfy.

I'll have a small glass of red wine maybe once a week, or just a sip here and there.

It makes me feel like i'm living my normal life and not obsessed w/ being pregnant (cuz thinking about my pregnancy makes me a bit stressed out.) so overall i'm just trying to remember, BREATHE.... I practice an 80/20 approach - try to eat 80% healthy great stuff, and not sweat if occasionally I have a craving for something outside that.

I love chai, and doubt that I will completely give it up (a cup a day is my normal routine). I am though, taking healthy whole food prenatals, EFAs, and eat organic, grass fed, and pastured produce, meat, and eggs.

It's more costly, but a healthy bun would be worth the effort.

Sorry to have hijacked your thread a little bit I do realize you asked for ideas about caffeine and conception, not pregnancy.

I just thought that since early miscarriage and fertility are not clearly separated from each other and little to no research has been done on caffeine and fertility that the next best thing (for making your own inferences) would be info on caffeine and early pregnancy. That said, I have also wondered about the relationship between caffeine and fertility, and actually posted a thread about it a while back.

I only got one taker, but she had a couple of interesting theories: http://www.mothering.com/discussions...481&highlight=

Ursusarctos, you are not hijacking, Knowledge is power! I guess i never linked miscarriage and fertility because my struggle in the past was with conceiving at all, not multiple loss.

But i think you are all right to remind me that both have similar issues.

I think i am going to enjoy a cup of decaf now and again and not sweat it until i have good reason to give it up completely. Fingers crossed!

Since I love coffee, I am biased of course , but when I became pregnant with my son, I was drinkning 5-6 cups of coffee a day.

( I would die now if I drank that much!!) We had just had a hurricane and I was soooo tired (didn't know I was pregnant yet).

I was moving trees off the house and plants for three weeks and drinking coffee like a crack-head. I had gotten pregnant with him on our first try.

He is the healthiest, strongest kid you've ever seen. Cut to 2 years later when we were trying to conceive agian.

I had read the caffeine/conceive studies and figured I'd give it up.

Well this time it took 4-5 months to conceive and I had a miscarriage. Obviously the two aren't related and I'm lucky nothing happened to my son when I was drinnking so much coffee.

It certainly has kept me from quitting my one cup a day while TTC this time though

Aye.... you know I'm with the rest - don't try to "control" every little thing, because it's not going to work *HUGS* - You know, we want to be in control of our lives, but in the end fiddling them down to the smallest detail can make a disappointment that much harder to bear, I think, because it then becomes one more way we can blame ourselves for what happened. What I would do instead of cutting out every single thing with caffeine in it (chocolate would have to be included - ooh noooo not me!) is maybe make some healthy changes of another kind in your life, like starting to drink organic milk, or planting a vegetable garden from which you can eat over next winter, pesticide free! That's being proactive - generally speaking if we are going to miscarry, we are going to miscarry, and unless you are injecting coffee into yourself in vast amounts, or are on speed, or don't ever sleep, or are being thrown down the stairs every day by an abusive other half, you just can't blame yourself.

Obviously there are risk factors that are proven, such as low progesterone, which one can "fix" but you know, many miscarriages are simply due to a chromosomal defect that happens incredibly early on.

In those cases, not drinking coffee just isn't going to help *HUGE hugs* XXX

Thank you all and thank you jayjay for the reminder of "control" and how much or how little we really have i am already pretty healthy eat almost exclusively organic (as much i can afford!) not a junk-food or fast-food eater, no processed foods, etc. (also luuuvvv chocolate) but i wish i could plant in my yard! i live in brooklyn so i am lucky to have a yard at all but i wouldn't trust anything grown in the soil here! although i just heard i could have the ground tested and build some beds to help? maybe this would be a nice summer project right now hubby and me are still so incapacitated with grief it's hard to just breathe

To help you remain off topic... there are awesome books on urban container gardening.

And you can actually grow quite a bit in limited spaces (and of course in a container you are adding your own compost/soil mix so you don't have to worry about contamination of the soil)... ok, back to your topic...

I saw those upside-down planters you can hang up and plant in the other day...

They seem like they might work for you.

They're basically a big bag you fill with soil, and hang up, and then plant upside-down in.

The plants just grow that way and are all happy *HUGE hugs* XXX

Quote: : I saw those upside-down planters you can hang up and plant in the other day...

They seem like they might work for you.

They're basically a big bag you fill with soil, and hang up, and then plant upside-down in.

The plants just grow that way and are all happy *HUGE hugs* XXX And you can make those with good chains and a bucket from Lowes/Home Depot.

We have some friends who did it and had exceptional luck.

So maybe we should create a separate gardening topic but I am so excited about gardening this season!

Maybe because of the miscarriage and death in our family, but I'm so excited to create life in my garden. I've been reading about container gardening, and I'm sure there's some great books out there, but I was reading this old one....

I guess you either need to use potting soil or sterilize your own soil.

So if you do have dirt, you can cook it in a pressure cooker or bake it in sheets in the oven;

You need to kill stuff that would attack seedlings.

My mom got some potting soil that was enriched with chicken manure and other organic compost, and her seeds came up WAY quicker than mine, I just used some normal potting soil I had around the house.

Cucumbers and tomatoes and peas you can grow hanging.

Quote: : ps. frontierpsych, very interesting?

I had a chemical pregnancy that for the longest time i thought i lost the little embryonic cluster due to a cup of coffee, hmmm?

That is interesting.

I guess there's no real way to tell.

My 10 week baby had a sac or something on the back of its neck that wasn't supposed to be there, and I was told that's usually a genetic disorder, but that there's no way to tell for sure.




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