Coffee during pregnancy - benefits and harms

As soon as a woman finds out about her interesting situation, she should completely reconsider her habits and lifestyle. Despite the fact that pregnancy is not a disease, you need to keep the quality of your life at the highest level. Now a woman cannot take medicine thoughtlessly - only after consulting a doctor. Pregnant women should give up bad habits - alcohol and smoking. A future mother should carefully monitor her health, listen to her feelings, and most importantly, review her nutrition. No, a woman should not go on a strict diet and eat only vegetables and boiled meat. But the nutrition of a pregnant woman should be balanced and healthy. It is necessary to exclude or at least reduce the amount of junk food.

One of the main stumbling blocks is coffee. Today, more than half of the world's people start the day with this aromatic drink, which gives energy and energy. Many literally cannot live without coffee, experiencing a real need and physical craving for a drink. What to do if an ardent coffee lover is in position? Is drink acceptable during pregnancy? How much coffee can I drink so as not to harm the baby in the womb? In this article we will try to answer all your questions.

Can I drink coffee during pregnancy?

This question excites many future mothers and, unfortunately, there is no unequivocal answer to it. When ingested, coffee is immediately absorbed into the bloodstream, reaches the brain and stimulates the production of dopamine. This hormone allows you to feel joy, vitality and fullness of strength. Unfortunately, the effect of coffee is short-term - no more than three hours. After the specified time, the woman will again feel apathy and breakdown. This, by the way, explains the high affection of some people for coffee - they simply cannot live without this drink, they drink 6-8 cups a day. Such a regime of drinking coffee cannot but affect the body of even a healthy person, let alone a weakened pregnant woman.

If you are very fond of coffee and it is difficult for you to refuse it even during pregnancy, drink one cup of your favorite drink a day, not more. This is a safe dose for pregnancy. Remember that during this period you need to prepare a weak, not strong coffee, it is advisable to drink it with milk. If you drink more than three cups of strong espresso per day, this can lead to dangerous consequences - miscarriage or premature birth (depending on the term). We will talk about the consequences of drinking coffee, but for now we’ll talk about the beneficial properties of this drink for pregnant women.

Useful properties of coffee during pregnancy

In addition to fat, carbohydrates and caffeine, coffee also contains tannins, organic acids, trace elements, minerals, polysaccharides, and vitamins. There are more than 2000 different substances in coffee, many of which are beneficial for the body.

1. To lower blood pressure. Sometimes coffee is the safest way to increase blood pressure. Hypertensive coffee, of course, can not be drunk, but with hypotension this is the ideal solution. Especially if classic medications to increase blood pressure are prohibited.
2. For the vitality of the body and spirit. Often pregnancy, especially in the early stages, gives severe drowsiness, apathy, and fatigue. It is very difficult for a woman to wake up in the morning, concentrate on work or study. Coffee will help to rectify the situation - it will quickly bring the future mom to life, provide a surge of strength and vitality.
3. Against constipation. Progesterone, which begins to be produced in the body of a pregnant woman from an early age, weakens the muscles in the lower abdomen to avoid possible contraction of the uterus and protect against miscarriage. But along with this, intestinal perilstatics slows down, for this reason, during pregnancy, a woman often experiences constipation. Coffee enhances intestinal activity; it is a mild laxative.
4. Against edema. Coffee gives a mild diuretic effect, this allows you to use the drink in the fight against edema.

We can say that this completes the list of useful properties of this drink. But the list of warnings is much more extensive.

Coffee damage during pregnancy

Modern doctors are skeptical of coffee, especially if a woman is pregnant. If you can refuse coffee, do it, there is very little useful in the drink, but there are much more negative sides. If coffee is very important to you, minimize the amount you drink. Try to drink no more than one cup per day. By the way, drinking coffee on an empty stomach during pregnancy is not recommended, it is better to enjoy a drink after breakfast. In the early stages of pregnancy, drinking coffee should be very rare; the drink is acceptable for daily use only in the second and third trimester. In addition, doctors recommend drinking at least three glasses of mineral water after coffee in order to replenish the body’s water-salt balance, because coffee removes a huge amount of liquid. Even if the pregnancy is absolutely normal and the woman is completely healthy, coffee can have the following negative effects on the body.

1. Coffee has a diuretic and laxative effect, but along with this, important trace elements — calcium, phosphorus, and fluorine — are washed out of the body along with excess fluid. This is very dangerous both for the fetus and for the mother, since during this period an increased amount of nutrients is required. With a lack of calcium and fluorine, the skeleton may not form properly, a woman develops osteoporosis, teeth may crumble, hair may fall out, nails may break, etc.
2. If a woman during pregnancy will drink more than 3 cups of coffee daily, the fetus will be born with low weight.
3. Another negative property of coffee is its ability to increase pressure. With hypertension, pregnant women are strictly contraindicated, or the drink is acceptable for use in a diluted form. With an increase in blood pressure, blood vessels narrow, less blood passes through them, less oxygen enters the placenta, the baby experiences hypoxia.
4. Empirically, it was proved that after a woman drinks coffee, the child's heart rate increases, the level of adrenaline in the blood of the mother and child increases.
5. It is very dangerous to drink coffee with uterine hypertonicity - this leads to a high risk of miscarriage or premature birth.
6. A large amount of caffeine in a woman’s body affects her emotional state - the expectant mother becomes aggressive, anxious, irritable. In addition, insomnia develops.
7. Instant coffee contains less caffeine than a real drink made from natural freshly ground beans. In addition, caffeine is present not only in coffee, but also in black tea, Coca-Cola and chocolate. This should be taken into account when drinking daily.
8. Coffee has another unpleasant property - the drink perfectly suppresses appetite, especially if it is with sugar, milk or cream. However, coffee has very few beneficial substances that must be ingested with food. Refusing a balanced and varied diet can lead to exhaustion.

Despite all the warnings, many women do not give up their favorite drink. We have already said that in small amounts of coffee is not dangerous. But there are diagnoses in which coffee is strictly contraindicated.Among them are anemia, violation of phytoplacental blood flow of any degree, tachycardia, hypertension, preeclampsia, gastrointestinal tract diseases, toxicosis. If you have problems with sleep or appetite, you should not drink coffee - the problems will only worsen. With such diagnoses, even a weakly concentrated drink can lead to unpleasant consequences.

Today, coffee has become so popular that it’s hard to imagine at least one day as an office worker. Indeed, people process, fall asleep at workplaces - coffee fights all this. But a pregnant woman is another caste of people, future mothers should take care not only of their taste preferences, but also of the baby’s health in the womb. Take care of your body during pregnancy, too much is at stake.

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