Caffeine consumption during pregnancy could change key brain pathways, resulting in children having significant behavioural problems in later life.
“These are sort of small effects and it’s not causing horrendous psychiatric conditions, but it is causing minimal but noticeable behavioural issues that should make us consider long term effects of caffeine intake during pregnancy,” said John Foxe, PhD, director of the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience. “I suppose the outcome of this study will be a recommendation that any caffeine during pregnancy is probably not such a good idea.” Foxe also pointed out that this was a retrospective study, reliant on mothers’ recall of caffeine consumption.
Studies had already linked caffeine to other outcomes, such as a meta-review which found a nearly linear link between caffeine consumption and low birth weight. It is known that foetuses do not possess the enzyme necessary to break down caffeine, which crosses the placenta into the foetal bloodstream.
Researchers at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) analysed brain scans of thousands of children. The researchers observed increased behavioural and attention problems along with hyperactivity in these children. They observed distinct changes in how the white matter tracks (which connect brain regions) were organised in children of mothers who reported caffeine consumption during pregnancy.
“What makes this unique is that we have a biological pathway that looks different when you consume caffeine through pregnancy,” said first author Zachary Christensen, an MD/PhD candidate in the Medical Science Training Program. “Previous studies have shown that children perform differently on IQ tests, or they have different psychopathology, but that could also be related to demographics, so it’s hard to parse that out until you have something like a biomarker. This gives us a place to start future research to try to learn exactly when the change is occurring in the brain.”
At this stage it is not known what the relationship between amounts of caffeine are, or what effects arise in each trimester.
“Current clinical guidelines already suggest limiting caffeine intake during pregnancy—no more than two normal cups of coffee a day,” added Christensen. “In the long term, we hope to develop better guidance for mothers, but in the meantime, they should ask their doctor as concerns arise.”
Source: Medical Xpress
Journal information: Zachary P. Christensen et al, Caffeine exposure in utero is associated with structural brain alterations and deleterious neurocognitive outcomes in 9–10 year old children, Neuropharmacology (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2021.108479
