Maternal consumption of caffeine and alcohol

Caffeine is the most widely used psychostimulant in the world.  The use of this drug during pregnancy is common but controversial.   Although women are currently advised to reduce caffeine intake throughout pregnancy, it is estimated that 70-95% of pregnant women continue to consume the drug despite the lack of a full understanding of its neurodevelopmental effects.  Such widespread use of caffeine is of concern because it can cross both the placental and blood brain barrier and accumulate in the developing brain.  Further, the half-life of caffeine is greatly prolonged in the developing fetus, being twenty fold that of an adult.  Caffeine primarily acts at adenosine receptors, but can have actions on ion channels that regulate intracellular calcium. 
In order to elucidate the effects of gestational caffeine exposure, we are using a moderate oral dosing regimen, equivalent to consumption of 2-3 cups of coffee/day, in the rat.  This is an appropriate model given the similar pharmacokinetics of caffeine metabolism between rats and humans. Preliminary evidence from our lab suggests that moderate caffeine exposure throughout gestation can alter the calcium dynamics of cultured primary hippocampal neurons.  This area of investigation intends to elucidate the neurodevelopmental consequences of moderate prenatal caffeine exposure.