Should Pregnant Women Worry About Caffeine?

Abstract

In this issue of Biological Psychiatry, Galéra et al. ( 1 Galéra C. Bernard J.Y. van der Waerden J. Bouvard M.-P. Lioret S. Forhan A. et al. Prenatal caffeine exposure and child IQ at age 5.5 years: The EDEN mother-child cohort. Biol Psychiatry. 2016; 80: 720-726 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (28) Google Scholar ) present a large sample study of maternal prenatal caffeine exposure and cognitive delays in their children by 5.5 years of age. Mothers were recruited during their pregnancy and interviewed both prenatally about their caffeine consumption in the year before pregnancy and at delivery about their consumption during the third trimester of pregnancy. As the authors indicate, the strengths of their study include the large sample size, the prospective assessment of caffeine exposure, and relevant covariates, including assessment of language use at home. Their findings report a significant difference in full-scale and performance IQ scores between children of mothers consuming <100 mg/day of caffeine and those consuming ≥200 mg/day during their pregnancy. Caffeine consumption during pregnancy was strikingly high in this birth cohort, with >90% of mothers using caffeine in some form through their pregnancy and >12% noting heavy consumption. Mechanistically, the authors suggest that prenatal caffeine exposure might block adenosine receptors during neural ontogeny and therefore alter the migration of gamma-aminobutyric acid neuronal populations, a hypothesis drawn from animal models and suggesting a direct teratogenic effect of caffeine exposure on neurodevelopment. Prenatal Caffeine Exposure and Child IQ at Age 5.5 Years: The EDEN Mother-Child CohortBiological PsychiatryVol. 80Issue 9PreviewEvidence from animal studies suggests maternal caffeine intake during pregnancy has detrimental effects on subsequent brain development in offspring. However, human data in this area are limited. The aim of this study was to assess whether caffeine intake by women during pregnancy is associated with impaired cognitive development in offspring at age 5.5 years. Full-Text PDF