There's no breakfast without coffee, and coffee is clearly the world's most important legal trade crop. Some researchers are trying to highlight the beneficial effects that coffee has on our health, whereas others look at it as the devil's beverage. There are voices saying that it's rather a bogus.

But this is for sure: pregnancy and coffee do not match. Many previous researches showed that too much coffee provoked low birth weight and prematurity, due to caffeine.

But a new research, published in the "American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology" and carried out by a team at Kaiser Permanente, the largest health plan in the United States, goes further: coffee can kill the baby inside the womb. Pregnant women drinking more than two cups of coffee daily double their risk of miscarriage.

This is an alarm call for expectant mothers to try to avoid drinking coffee, tea, caffeinated drinks or hot chocolate.
"On the basis of this study I think I'll be advising women to avoid caffeine during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, especially those with a history of miscarriage", consultant obstetrician Pat O'Brien, spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told Daily Mail.

The caffeine appears to be more toxic for the unborn baby because it remains longer in pregnant women and through the blood it enters easily to the growing fetus, who cannot neutralize it quickly. The persisting caffeine impacts cell development and decreases placental blood circulation, with severe effects on the baby's life-support system.

The new research was made on 1,063 pregnant women in San Francisco between October 1996 and October 1998. The subjects did not change their caffeine intake during pregnancy. Subjects drinking 200mg or more of caffeine daily (this means at least two regular cups of coffee or five 12 oz (300 mg) cans of caffeinated drink) doubled their miscarriage risk, compared to women who did not consume caffeine. Subjects with a caffeine intake of less than 200mg daily presented an over 40 % higher risk of miscarriage.