Expectant mothers are advised to be careful about their diet and be mindful of everything that they include in their daily diets. This is because diet is crucial for the proper development of the foetus and may boost or hinder her/his growth. A new study has said that consuming too much caffeine from either tea or coffee may affect the liver of the baby negatively. The study warned mothers that consumption of excessive caffeine during pregnancy may impair the development of the baby or even lead to liver diseases in adulthood. The study was however, conducted on rodent models. The researchers saw that rats that were exposed to high levels of caffeine while pregnant gave birth to offspring that had altered growth and stress hormones, lowered birth weight and impaired liver development.
The study titled, "Prenatal caffeine exposure induces liver developmental dysfunction in offspring rats" was published in the Journal of Endocrinology and it said that even having two to three cups of coffee per day during pregnancy may lead to changes in stress and growth hormone levels in a way that could hamper the baby's liver development. For the study, the researchers looked at low exposure (two to three cups) and high exposure (six to nine cups) of caffeine given to pregnant rats and how each of these affected lie function and hormone levels of the offspring. They found that prenatal caffeine exposure resulted in an excess of stress hormone activity in the mother.
This hampered the activity of the Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), which plays an important role in childhood growth. Study co-author Yinxian Wen from the Wuhan University in China said, "The increased risk of fatty liver disease, caused by prenatal caffeine exposure, is most likely a consequence of this enhanced, compensatory postnatal IGF-1 activity." She added by saying, "Our work suggests that prenatal caffeine is not good for babies and although these findings still need to be confirmed in people, I would recommend that women avoid caffeine during pregnancy."
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