Can pregnant women drink tea

Tea is one of the most popular beverages around the world, and even many pregnant women like to have some tea every day. For them, tea is the perfect substitute of water, and they beli eve tea is able to neutralize pregnant-related symptoms like nausea and vomiting. However, is it totally safe to drink tea for pregnant women? In this essay, let’s find out the answer.

Caffeine in tea

Tea is known as a beverage that contains rich caffeine, only below coffee. For instance, there is around 100mg caffeine per cup of coffee, but this figure drops down to only 33mg in a cup of tea.

Nevertheless, there is a potential relationship between the caffeine in tea and the health of both pregnant women and the baby. Many scientific studies have found that the intake of caffeine has a positive correlation with miscarriage, premature delivery, and low weight of newborn babies. The specialists thus give out a 300mg maximum of caffeine intake per day, within which the pregnant women and the baby are both safe. For women that are genetically sensitive to caffeine, on the other hand, should drink less than 200mg per day.

To further reduce the potential side effect of caffeine, pregnant women could also take some actions to lower the caffeine amount. For example, steep tea twice. Get rid of the first steep as it contains the most caffeine, and drink the second one instead. The other way is to drink more green tea rather than black tea and other oxidized tea which contain much more caffeine.

Herbal tea may have side effects, too

Herbal tea refers to the tea that is made from herbals, flowers, spices, and fruits. Though herbal tea doesn’t contain caffeine, the evidence that proves it may not lead to bad pregnant results is not definitely clear for now. And the herbal tea that is claimed to have side effects include motherwort (a kind of plant that may cause miscarriage, preterm labor, menstrual bleeding, and birth defects), borage, lovage, and thyme.

Therefore, considering the incomplete evidence, it is recommended that pregnant women don’t drink any herbal tea if they are in pregnancy or planning to conceive. While if drinking non-herbal tea, it is better to limit the intake of 300mg/200mg or directly drink decaf tea.