Tuesday, May 3, 2011

My cup of tea?

It seems that there has always been some disagreement as to the amount of caffeine that is permissible during pregnancy.  The good news for coffee fiends is that, more recently, it's determined to be pretty safe to drink about 200mg of caffeine per day during pregnancy without any ill effects, so you don't have to give it up completely.  At the same time, that 200mg limit can easily be met by a single 8oz cup of coffee.  Seeing as it's suggested to cut down on caffeine intake from trying to conceive through pregnancy, I figured I should weigh out my options here for what is ok to drink.

Fortunately for me, I actually cut down on coffee and soda several years ago.  75% of the time, I'm drinking water or green tea.  The problem is of course that caffeine appears in lots of places.  The 3-4 cups of green tea that I usually drink daily each contain 30-50mg of caffeine which, when added to my one morning coffee each day, already puts me over the 200mg mark.  That's interesting considering I don't think of myself as somebody who drinks a lot of caffeine.

Seeing as shots of whiskey are also off the table, what are my options?
- Decaffeinated coffee/tea?  Truthfully, I really don't find decaf coffee anywhere near as tasty.  My mother in law drinks double shot decaf espresso, which seems to be an oxymoron.  She says she likes the flavor, but I can't seem to garner the same joy from it.  I'd be down to give some decaf teas a try though. 
- Herbal tea could be an option, but you do have to be very careful that the herbs do not have any adverse affect on pregnancy and fertility either.  Safe ingredients (in small doses) include ginger, lime blossom, peppermint, roasted barley, rose hips, and thyme.  Meanwhile, the list of unsafe herbal tea ingredients is much longer - including (to name a few) anise, catnip, chamomile, comfrey, ephedra (a/k/a ma huang), European mistletoe, hibiscus, horehound, Labrador, lemongrass, licorice root, mugwort, pennyroyal, rosemary, sage, sassafras, stinging nettle leaf, vetiver, and yarrow.  Rasberry leaf is a tea that some use closer to being full term, but isn't suggested earlier on in the pregnancy. 
- "Clear" sodas such as 7-up, Sprite should be ok for that one soda a week that I drink.  I also love Ginger Ale, which has a secondary purpose for reducing nausea as a result of morning sickness.  I'm also glad that orange Fanta is caffeine free.  It's not clear but it's delicious!
- Juice seems like it would be a good plan given that it contains nutrients good for the body.  However, there are also limitations because the juice must be pasteurized to kill any bacteria (so no fresh squeezed).

It's funny how important something seems just because you're not supposed to be doing it.  For now, I'm glad that I should still be fine drinking one cup of coffee and one cup of green tea a day...alternative beverages to be explored soon!

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