Does coffee cut your chances of having a baby?

Four cups of coffee a day could reduce a woman’s chances of having a baby by more than a quarter.

That’s according to researchers in Holland, who found women who got their caffeine fix more than three times a day were 26% less likely to conceive than those who drank less.

The results - revealed at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology’s annual conference in Barcelona this week – even suggested that regularly drinking the UK’s second favourite hot beverage cut the chances of being able to conceive as much as drinking, smoking or being overweight.

Okay, so a few questions spring to mind, like: What do scientists have against coffee? Are they all tea-drinkers? Oh, and how the hell did Kerry Katona ever conceive?

Maybe she is not a big coffee drinker.

However, before you throw your Starbucks down the sink, at least see how they came up with these findings.

Well, at first glance, the results do appear quite stark. They say drinking more than three cups of coffee a day had the same effect on a woman’s ability to conceive as drinking three alcoholic drinks a week.

The Radboud University in Nijmegan study also stated that being overweight cut their chances even further (29%), while smokers were a third less likely to have a baby.

But it is worth strongly noting that the 9,000 women involved in the study from 1985 to 1995 - of which 1,350 fell pregnant naturally after the treatment ended - were already experiencing fertility problems and had been through IVF treatment.

A point backed up by Fiona Ford, of the Centre for Pregnancy Nutrition, who, speaking to the BBC, said the findings should be viewed with caution.

She said: “Whilst the results of this study are interesting, there are evidently limitations to these findings as post IVF patients are a selective group who have already experienced problems with conception.

“There is nothing within this study that provides a reason to change guidance to patients.”

Fertility expert Professor Bill Ledger, from the University of Sheffield, agreed.

He added: “A lot of women can have 20 cups of coffee a day and get pregnant while falling off a log, but if you’re already subfertile it could push you over the edge.

“It is only a problem if you are subfertile and you overdose.”