Hey all… my wife is in the first few weeks with our second kiddo, and we were wondering if there was any kind of consensus on drinking soft drinks during pregnancy. She is pretty good about avoiding caffiene, not a coffee drinker and preferring things like root beer, sunkist orange, etc. She also does not drink diet sodas.
I just checked the Sunkist Orange in my fridge and it HAS caffeine in it. Best bet when dealing with pregnancy is for her to ALWAYS check with her ob/gyn if she’s unsure.
That said, during my pregnancy I drank two Diet Pepsi’s per day because MY (not yours, so don’t take my advice) ob/gyn okayed one cup of coffee. I checked caffeine quantities (80-175 mg for coffee depending on how it’s brewed vs. Diet Pepsi’s 36 mg) and figured I could go with two a day.
Here’s a site that list caffeine content in popular drinks. BTW Sunkist Orange has 40mg of caffeine.
As long at it didn’t have caffeine in it, I drank it. I even avoided chocolate at first, because of the caffeine content. My doctor thought that one was pretty funny.
They tell you not to drink diet soda because of a rare metabolic disorder called PKU. From what I was taught about 3 years ago in a nutrition class the toxins can build up in the developing baby if the mom the mom has PKU (or if the baby has it) and drinks diet soda during pregnancy- since the chemical is contained in the artifical sweetener, regular soda doesn’t have the same risk associated with it. Caffeine on the other hand, seems to be something no one can agree on.
I don’t think non-diet sodas, sans caffeine, are going to do much harm.
However, my concern would be that they might supplant other liquids she should be drinking. She should take care to not get dehydrated, and make sure to drink plenty of water.
I am a Coca-cola fiend, and thankfully they came out with caffeine free Coke around the same time I became pregnant with my oldest, though it was hard to find in my area. It’s a lot easier to come by, now, and I just had my 3rd child this past January. I agree with Cranky, as long as she’s getting enough good liquids, most especially water, non-diet, caffeine free, soda should not pose a problem, at least, it hasn’t with the three little people I’m raising.
Do check labels, though. During my first pregnancy, I grabbed one of my now ex-husband’s creme soda’s, thinking that it was caffeine free, as it had always been in the past, and what a surprise I got, when halfway through, I noticed the small print on the side of the can, “Now with caffeine!” UGH!
~V
I am pregnant, and I have and continue to cut down on my caffeine (Pepsi and Coke) intake. All at once would cause migraines, and that’s just not worth it.
My two cents, I read a magazine article in Fit Pregnancy (no cite, sorry, but it would’ve been in the last two months) that 80% of newborns in the US have to go through caffeine withdrawal in the first week of their lives.
I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I am definitely cutting out caffeine, if only to save my baby from the possibility of the “joy” of caffeine withdrawal headaches.
Aside from the caffeine issue, the only concern my OB had about soft drinks was that the phosphorus in them might interfere with the uptake of calcium. Newer research seems to conclude that this isn’t the case, but if you’re drinking 150 calories of soda, those 150 calories don’t provide much nutritive value.
This article from the University of Kansas has more information.