Let’s Stop Scaring Women
No more coffee or diet soda during pregnancy:
I’m sorry, but this old saw has been around for years, and I don’t believe this study has proved that caffeine causes miscarriages any more than any other look at the issue. Some authorities agree with moi, who continued to need her caffeine fix through two healthy pregnancies.
Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and epidemiology, at Columbia University Medical Center, had reservations about the study, noting that miscarriage is difficult to study or explain.
Dr. Westhoff said most miscarriages resulted from chromosomal abnormalities, and there was no evidence that caffeine could cause those problems.
“Just interviewing women, over half of whom had already had their miscarriage, does not strike me as the best way to get at the real scientific question here,” she said. “But it is an excellent way to scare women.”
She said that smoking, chlamidial infections and increasing maternal age were stronger risk factors for miscarriage, and ones that women could do something about.
My understanding about scientific studies is that questioning folks after the event is considered somewhat suspect as interview subjects might be looking for facts that explain a bad outcome. This is known as recall bias, and it is one of the factors that led to the dismissal of the hypothesis that an abortion can cause breast cancer.
Now I am waiting for someone to explain to me why anti-depressants, which are a known risk factor for certain birth defects, are not contraindicated for pregnant women. Maybe we need a pharmaceutical company to turn caffeine into a pill they can make billions from …
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About Helaine Olen
I am the voice of The Bills, a column about the intersection of money and life, at Slate. At Inc., I contribute to the Spread the Wealth personal finance column. My work on politics, economics, workplace culture and women’s issues has been published in numerous other print and on-line publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Salon, Pacific Standard, and The Los Angeles Times, where I wrote and edited the popular “Money Makeover” feature.
I'm the author of the critically acclaimed book Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry, and The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to be so Complicated, which I co-wrote with Harold Pollack.
What else? I’m a passionate bibliophile, a fan of 1970s pop music and a lover of rummage sales. I live in New York City.
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