Coffee Concern!

I have a book at home that I use all the time. Its call Prescription for Nutritional Healing By Phyllis and James Balch.

Not sure how true this is but on page 581 it says exactly this : "Decaffeinated coffee, rather than regular coffee, is thought to be a contributing cause of spontaneous abortion during the first trimester"

I would have figured that it would have been better than reg coffee. Has anyone else read or heard this?

Liz

Re: Coffee Concern!

I have never heard of that. Honestly, I can't imagine how it would be a risk, if caffeinated coffee isn't. What would be so different about decaf - I thought decaffeination was a natural process?

Re: Coffee Concern!

pretty soon, we'll be subsisting on water and twigs during PG...

I have heard NOTHING other than coffee should be used in GREAT moderation during PG...


Hope you are feeling well.

Re: Coffee Concern!

Hmmm, well, this prompted me to do a little research, it seems that the only risk I can find with decaff is that they think it may increase a woman's risk of heart disease, but I found nothing saying that it increased the likelyhood of spontaneous abortion. Hmmm, interesting. I've never heard that before! I'm curious now if there's been other studies.

Re: Coffee Concern!

I guess because they use chemcials to draw out the caffeine??...I found this online (they use a "solvent?")....

Decaffeinating coffee is achieved through a variety of decaffeination processes, all of which are relatively harmless to your health, but harmful to coffee quality. Almost every process for decaffeination consists of soaking the beans in water to dissolve the caffeine, extracting the caffeine with either a solvent or activated carbon, and then re-soaking the coffee beans in the decaffeinated water to reabsorb the flavor compounds that were lost in the initial extraction. The solvents typically used are methylene chloride or ethyl acetate, which both have a low boiling point. Since ethyl acetate is found naturally in fruits you will hear people call this process "natural." In any case the solvent never comes in contact with the coffee bean itself, but only the water solution containing the caffeine that was previously extracted from the coffee bean. Therefore the water decaffeination process is relatively benign. All methods used to decaffeinate coffee are based on equilibrium principles and solvent/solute properties. As such, neither all of the caffeine is removed from the coffee, nor are all of the flavor compounds returned or left in the coffee. The chemical composition of decaffeinated coffee (or decaf coffee) is altered, and therefore the flavor and aroma are changed.

Re: Coffee Concern!

Wow! My DR told me to drink Decaf if I had to have coffee....

Re: Coffee Concern!

Posted by mommy2bella

pretty soon, we'll be subsisting on water and twigs during PG...

I have heard NOTHING other than coffee should be used in GREAT moderation during PG...


Hope you are feeling well.

Message edited 7/13/2007 8:23:00 PM.

Re: Coffee Concern!

Sometimes, I think all the reading makes us a little too cautious.

I am glad I never saw that because I never really cut down the amount of coffee I drink in the morning, just switched to decaf (2-3 mugs) and I have not had any problems. If I had to give it up altogether, it would have been tough!

Re: Coffee Concern!

i have not heard that but you can always research it and see how true it is..

i hope your feeling well

Re: Coffee Concern!

Re: Coffee Concern!

I agree with the post about water and twigs!

I've heard the coffee thing a few years ago at my previous job when i was working on a caffeine extraction project...the ethyl acetate used by some companies to take the caffeine out of the actual coffee can be very dangerous and traces of it can be retained in the actual coffee. Some companies don't use this solvent, but you can't really tell the exact souce of the coffee sold to stores/suppliers. I don't think it's as serious a risk as drinking caffeinated coffee, but you never know.
(I used to drink coffee b/c of the caffeine, so drinking decaf is pretty pointless for me.)
For perspective, there will always be people who will tell you not to use something -- there are people who swear that companies like Tampax lace their tampons with tiny slivers of glass to keep women's menstrual cycles lasting longer so they'll use more tampons..and therefore we should only use "natural" tampons. This didn't stop me from using tampons, though.

Re: Coffee Concern!

My dr said that decaf drinks (soda, coffee, tea) were OK but in moderation.

Message edited 7/14/2007 11:57:05 AM.

Re: Coffee Concern!

I have the same book, and I think in general it's very anti-anything that doesn't grow straight out of compost. I'd check with your OB, but I'm 99% sure decaf is fine. My OB said it's fine, fwiw.

Re: Coffee Concern!

I have heard this as well. I had a MC in December and did TON of research in an attemt to find a reason for my MC. I had been drinking decaf at the time. During that time I read all sorts of crazy things about what is safe and what isn't during pregnancy. Eventually, for my own sanity, I had to step away from the computer for a while.

I am currently 17wks PG and all is well. I have 1-2 cups of regular coffee a day. During my first trimester I did 1/2 reg and 1/2 decaf. I think that the best advice is that whatever you do, try to do it in moderation. Too much of anything can be a bad thing.

HTH