Can drinking coffee while pregnant really affect the kid? A latest study found that children who were exposed to caffeine within the womb are inclined to be shorter than their non-exposed peers.

Caffeine has been considered one of those no-nos while pregnant. Even when it’s just in “modest amounts,” consuming it while pregnant has been related to lower birth rates, the researchers noted of their study, published Monday in JAMA Network Open.

“On condition that roughly 8 in 10 US pregnant women eat caffeine, it will be important to find out whether in utero caffeine exposure has long-term growth implications in offspring,” they wrote.

To look into the possible impact of caffeine consumption on child growth, the researchers analyzed two previous studies that involved 2,400 pregnant women, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) noted in a news release.

Indeed, they found that the kids who were born to women “with low measured caffeine and paraxanthine while pregnant” were somewhat shorter than their peers whose moms had no caffeine consumption. Paraxanthine is a caffeine breakdown product, noted the NIH.

The gaps even increased from age 4 to age eight. The association with decreases in child height was observed “even with maternal consumption below current recommendations of 200 mg day,” noted the researchers.

In other words, the peak difference was observed even when the caffeine consumption was in small amounts.

“Although the clinical implications are unclear for relatively small observed differences, these findings suggest that small amounts of each day maternal caffeine consumption are related to shorter stature of their offspring that persist into childhood,” they wrote.

Consumption of lower than 200 mg is concerning the amount of caffeine in a single 12-ounce cup of coffee, noted The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). As an illustration, a mug of fast coffee has about 100 mg of caffeine, while a mug of filtered coffee has 140 mg, in keeping with the Cleveland Clinic.

It is also price noting that other foods and beverages akin to chocolate, tea and soda may contain caffeine.

The researchers clarified that these height differences they found were “small.” It also stays to be seen whether it has an impact on the kid’s health, or if it persists into maturity.

“To be clear, these are usually not huge differences in height, but there are these small differences in height amongst the kids of people that consumed caffeine while pregnant,” considered one of the leads of the study, Jessica Gleason of the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said as per CNN.

Gleason clarified that there isn’t any reason for families to panic over these results.

“(F)urther research is required to find out if these differences have any effects on child health,” said the opposite study lead, Katherine Grantz, as per NIH. “Pregnant people should discuss caffeine consumption with their healthcare providers.”