According to a Danish study, drinking coffee doesn’t have a negative effect on birth weight and doesn’t lead to an increase in the number of premature births. To explain…

A team at Aarhus University monitored 207 pregnant women who were regular coffee drinkers. On average they drank three cups a day. During the last 20 weeks of their pregnancy half of them continued to drink normal coffee while the other half changed to a decaffeinated product.

The author of the report found no significant difference between the two groups. Among the first group, 4.2% of the infants born were premature and 4.5% showed a low birth weight – this is compared with 5.2% and 4.7% among the second group. So, the message is… you should avoid smoking and alcohol during pregnancy but you can allow yourself a small black coffee from time to time. Always in moderation, of course !