If you aren’t happy with how tall you are, then you might want to have a conversation with your mother, as a new study suggests that as much as a half-cup of coffee each day during pregnancy can take an inch of a child’s height by the time they hit elementary school.
The study, published Tuesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association, surveyed almost 2,500 children nationwide ages 4 to 8.
While previous studies have looked to understand the relationship between coffee and pregnancy, they only relied on mothers self-reporting their consumption of the beverage.
The new study from JAMA instead looked at blood samples to determine the exact levels of caffeine and its metabolite paraxanthine.
The study revealed that coffee had similar effects on children as those whose mothers smoked during their pregnancies.
“We consistently observed shorter height, which has been associated with increased risk of multiple cardiometabolic diseases in both pregnant and nonpregnant individuals,” the study said.
Previous studies have linked moderate coffee consumption during pregnancy to lower birth weights, and while they have found it also now relates to shorter heights for kids, the reason remains unclear.
The JAMA study does note that caffeine is a stimulant and not metabolized by the features, instead accumulating in the tissue.
This could have some effect, but researchers are still not certain, though they think it is important to look at it in future studies.
“It is important to determine whether in utero caffeine exposure has long-term growth implications in offspring,” the study found.
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