Coffee link to stillbirths

Pregnant women who drink more than eight cups of coffee a day triple their risk of having a stillborn baby compared with non-coffee drinkers, a new study said today.

Exposure to caffeine during pregnancy has been previously linked to an increased risk of miscarriage and low birth weight.

Now new research, published in today's British Medical Journal, has found that drinking coffee-during pregnancy is linked with an increased risk of stillbirth.

The researchers looked at 18,478 pregnant women booked in to give birth at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark between 1989 and 1996.

The women all completed questionnaires about their medical history, smoking habits, alcohol and coffee consumption.

The research team, led by Kirsten Wisborg of Aarhus University Hospital, found of those studied the overall likelihood of having a stillborn baby was 4.4 per 1,000.

The researchers found that pregnant women who drank four to seven cups a day had an 80 percent increased risk of having a stillborn baby.

Those who consumed more than eight cups a day had a 300 per cent higher risk, compared with pregnant women who did not have coffee.