A friend of mine had an appointment for artificial insemination, and the clinic told her she should go on bedrest for three days following the procedure to avoid any risk of miscarriage. Well, my friend looked up a bunch of studies, and according to her research, bedrest not only doesn't reduce miscarriage risk after insemination, it has just slightly higher odds of miscarriage. But I can see why the clinic advised this: They want to avoid the idea that any maternal action resulted in a pregnancy loss, and in a way it's exactly how we treat pregnancy nowadays. Don't drink at all. Be careful exercising. Avoid sushi and brie and meat that isn't cooked all the way through. And now, quit coffee or tea, or at the very least, cut way back, or you'll have to live with the fact that if only you had been willing to give it up, you might have had a viable pregnancy. All this, despite the fact that the vast majority of miscarriages are likely the result of genetic or chromosonal issues that mean the fetus would never make it to term, even if you lived in a plastic bubble and only consumed special nutrients and filtered water. 

And this is just one of the things that has raised the ire of lots of women towards the latest study connecting higher caffeine consumption to an increased risk of miscarriage. The research has been called out for the small sample size and the methodology of interviewing women post-miscarriage about caffeine consumption. And it is also raising the hackles of women fed up with being told they should do this and that or they are selfish moms. The fact that environmental toxins and pollutants have not received the same coverage was pointed out, as was the fact that some of the taboo behaviors are the norm in countries with comparable miscarriage rates. And lots of other stuff too, because I think many ladies are at a breaking point with being advised against things that they like having in their lives, pregnant or not. 

Look, there are certainly things that have strong connections to issues in pregnancy, and most of those (like smoking) are pretty obvious because they have bad repercussions for non-pregnant people too. And of course, even those known hazards are not a guarantee of problems for the individual, believe it or not. But the more tenuous connections to things like coffee are getting to be a bit much. And I think what's sad about it is that almost every woman I know who had a pregnancy loss blamed herself on some level, or at least questioned her own behavior, and I include myself in that number. And it's sad because the recrimination comes in situations where most likely no one could have done anything to prevent the miscarriage, not unless they had the ability to change the chromosonal makeup of a fetus that was never going to survive.