Coffee Intake During Pregnancy Not Linked to Neurodevelopmental Issues

FRIDAY, Oct. 25, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Maternal coffee consumption during pregnancy does not likely cause neurodevelopmental difficulties (NDs) in offspring, according to a study published online Oct. 9 in Psychological Medicine.

Shannon D'Urso, from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and colleagues investigated whether maternal coffee consumption was observationally or causally associated with offspring childhood NDs. The observational analysis included 58,694 mother-child duos and 22,576 father-child duos participating in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study, while 46,245 mother-child duos were included in the Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.

The researchers found positive associations between maternal coffee consumption and offspring difficulties with social-communication/behavioral flexibility and inattention/hyperactive-impulsive behavior. No associations were seen with paternal coffee consumption. When adjusting for smoking, alcohol, education, and income, the maternal associations attenuated to the null. Increased maternal coffee consumption was causally associated with social-communication difficulties (individual-level: beta = 0.128; two-sample: beta = 0.348). However, the effect diminished in individual-level MR analyses that modeled potential pleiotropic pathways (beta = 0.088). For the causal effect of coffee consumption on social communication difficulties, individual-level MR analyses yielded similar estimates in maternal coffee consumers (beta = 0.153).

"Our results provide little evidence for a causal effect of maternal coffee consumption on offspring NDs," the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text