Should you give up coffee when trying to conceive or pregnant?
I remember when I first heard that you should give up coffee when trying to conceive or pregnant.
I think my exact response was …
pffffffffffftttttttttttt
Yes. Very mature of me, I know.
But that’s how much I loved coffee.
Today I want to share with you some of my thoughts of giving up coffee when trying to conceive or pregnant, whether you need to do it, and why I ended up giving it up about a year ago. Watch the video below of read on for a somewhat abridged version of what I share. Also I’d love to know… have you given up coffee?
Why its recommend you give up coffee when trying to conceive?
+ caffeine fuels the body with adrenaline (that’s the zing part that we love and often why we drink it) which the body thinks is stress
+ when you’re trying to conceive you want to avoid all types of stress (the body is designed to NOT conceive under stressful conditions)
+ caffeine often gives you a big afternoon crash which can make healthy eating a lot harder to stick to.
+ caffeine is detoxed via the liver whose job is also to flush out excess hormones in the body. To have your hormonal system working at its best, try to avoid other toxins that will make the liver work overtime.
Why its recommended you give up coffee for pregnancy?
+ there is concern about how much caffeine reaches the baby (whose tiny system is not really prepared to have to deal with caffeine)
+ high amounts of caffeine in the baby’s system are thought to cause lower birth weights which has links to all sorts of health complications in adulthood
+ caffeine puts extra stress on the body at a time when it’s already doing so much
Why I gave up coffee
Personally I have tried to give up coffee many times and failed. I enjoy the ritual of coffee drinking and I love the taste. It wasn’t until I realised how much coffee was fuelling my anxiety that I decided to let it go.
I know a lot of people who have issues when giving up; headaches, low energy and full on withdrawals. I didn’t notice too much but in all honesty I was in such a bad place when I gave up, grieving and mostly laying low anyway so perhaps that’s why I didn’t notice any major symptoms.
Do YOU need to give up coffee when trying to conceive or pregnant?
+ current recommendations in most countries is that a small amount of caffeine is ok (so like one or two cups a day depending on how strong you have it).
+ listen to your own body.
Honestly this last point is what is all comes down to. If coffee makes you feel good and you aren’t drinking too much then I don’t think you need to worry about it affecting your fertility or your baby. If you find coffee increases your stress or anxiety, or just generally doesn’t make you feel good, then perhaps it’s time to find an alternative.
When we first started trying to conceive and came up against some difficulty, I pretty much tried everything. And googled everything and drove myself a whole lot crazy wondering what the hell was wrong with me. Eventually I came to realise that so much of my problem was down to stress and anxiety, and that my obsession with trying to conceive was only making it 1000 times worse.
Everyone just says ‘relaaaaxxxx and it will happen’ but how do you do that when a baby is something you want to badly? While it’s infuriating to hear this advice (and not helpful at all), I did end up finding a way to come down from the stress and anxiety of it all with yoga, meditation, visualisation and a whole lot of self-care. Not long after that, I fell pregnant. I can’t of course guarantee that this will make you pregnant, I can tell you it makes to road to getting there a whole lot more enjoyable.
If you’d like to know more about what I did, I share it all over in my Fertility Yoga Course. You can check it out over here.