by Perry McCarney

Created on: July 20, 2010   Last Updated: September 10, 2010

Is the consumption of dark chocolate and hot chocolate or cocoa beverages beneficial or harmful during pregnancy? Unfortunately the answer is both, as is so often the case in the real world. However, the harmful effects are primarily due to chocolate's caffeine and polyphenol content, so these negatives can be minimized by reducing the dietary intake of other foods with high caffeine and polyphenol contents, allowing pregnant women to still enjoy their chocolate and gain the benefits from it!

In today's society, stress is ever present. When a pregnant woman is stressed her body releases stress hormones such as cortisol into her bloodstream, just like everyone else. These hormones pass relatively freely through the placental barrier inducing stress in her fetus as well, which can impair their psychological and physical development.

A study of 305 women in Finland by Katri Raikkonen and colleagues from the University of Helsinki found that the six month-old infants of women who were stressed during pregnancy and consumed chocolate (daily or weekly) were more active and positively reactive (smiling and interacting with their caregivers) than those of women who did not. As were the infants of women who were not unduly stressed but consumed chocolate anyway.

Nevertheless, too much of a good thing can be a problem. A too active or hyperexcitable infant is neither desirable to parents nor good for the child. An infant born to a chocoholic mother in Italy presented a case of hyperexcitability syndrome (jitteriness, irritability, inconsolable crying, excessive sucking, and sleeping difficulties) from soon after birth. Extensive diagnostic tests could find none of the normal causes for this complaint, implying that excessive chocolate consumption may have been the cause. The Helsinki study actually supports this hypothesis.   

Preeclampsia is a severe health complication that can occur during pregnancy. It displays as a range of cardiovascular (heart and blood system) symptoms, particularly hypertension, commonly known as high blood pressure. If untreated it can lead to eclampsia; which is fatal to 10 percent of mothers and 25 percent of infants during or or shortly after the birthing process.  

A comparison study done by the Yale University of 1681 pregnant women showed that those who had less than one serving of chocolate per week appeared to be significantly more likely to develop preeclampsia than those with five or more per week. In total, 3.7 percent

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