Caffeine May Contribute to Infant Deaths

Pregnant women who drink more than four cups of coffee per day appear more likely to give birth to infants who will succumb to sudden infant death syndrome, according to new research published Tuesday in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Tea and colas containing caffeine produced the same increase in risk, according to the results from the New Zealand “Cot Death Study.”

Researchers had previously known that caffeine can interfere with the development of embryos, producing miscarriages, low birth weight, withdrawal symptoms and breathing problems.

But the new study is the first to show that the drug’s effects can appear months after birth.

SIDS strikes nearly 3,000 American infants each year, and is the leading cause of death among those between 1 month and 1 year old.

Dr. Rodney Ford and his colleagues at the Community Pediatric Group in Christchurch, New Zealand, interviewed parents of SIDS babies and a comparable number of parents with healthy infants. When they allowed for all other factors known to cause SIDS, they still found that mothers of children who died were twice as likely to be heavy users of coffee, colas and tea.

Ford said that caffeine use by the mother may stimulate the baby’s respiratory system unnaturally. When this effect is withdrawn after birth, he said, the baby’s respiratory drive may be inadequate to withstand infection or other stresses.

The findings should not be surprising, said Dr. Al Steinschneider of the American SIDS Institute. “Caffeine is a drug . . . and it has an effect on the fetus as well as on the mother,” he said.