Teratogenic effects of caffeine

Also, caffeine is said to stunt growth and cause hyperactivity. Therefore, it is possible that these effects would be seen in the children of women who consume caffeine. In order to find the consequences of caffeine and whether it is in fact dangerous for developing babies, a study must be done on pregnant mothers with the subjects being their babies. .
             The study that would be conducted would involve women during their fetal stage of pregnancy. The reason for the women being in their fetal stage is simply, in many cases, during the zygotic stage they may not even know they are pregnant. There is a higher chance that most of the women will be in the fetal stage. They would be randomly selected from several clinics. Although it would be a special sample of women because they are all ones who decided to go to clinics, they would all be selected at random to account for some of the bias. These mothers would be split between ones that took in an excess amount, regular amount, or no caffeine. However, since caffeine could potentially have negative effects on a developing baby, a researcher cannot tell a mother to consume a specific amount of caffeine. Therefore, there is little experimental control and the study would have to be a naturalistic with some experimental qualities or in other words a pseudo-experiment. The women would have to report what their caffeine intake was each day. However, this could lead to possible subject bias. Some mothers may not be honest in their reporting if they feel they drink too much caffeine or some may just simply forget and misreport. In order to deal with this subject bias, women can be blood tested for caffeine, asked to keep daily journals, or researchers can collect family reports of caffeine intake. .
             After women have their babies, the subjects will be longitudinally studied at birth, one month, six months, one year, and five years. The babies will be examined for both physiological and structural problems they might have "these differences in outcome being the dependent variable of the study.