Exhausted Parents Rejoice! Coffee May Help You Live Longer, Study Says

We all know how exhausting it is to be a parent. There are plenty of tricks to help you stay awake and alert, but there’s probably none more essential—or beloved—than coffee. Researchers have been going back and forth about the health risks for years, but a new study found evidence that coffee can not only be part of a healthy diet, but it might even bring you long life.

The paper, published in Jama Internal Medicine, studied half a million people, including java lovers who consume anywhere from one to eight cups of coffee a day, and observed an “inverse association with coffee drinking and mortality.” The results were the same for filtered, instant and decaf.

People who drank one cup of coffee a day were found to have an 8 percent lower risk of premature death when compared to people who didn’t drink any, and that rate rose if more coffee was consumed. Once you hit the eight-cup-a-day mark, however, the rate started to drop slightly. (Hey, if you’re up to eight a day, you might want to think about cutting down anyway.)

But be careful: This news isn’t carte blanche to drink as much as you want if you’re a breastfeeding mom or mom-to-be.

If you’re pregnant, doctors recommend limiting your caffeine intake, as it causes baby’s heart to beat faster and can cause medical problems. But you don’t have to go cold turkey: the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), says that a “moderate amount” of caffeine during pregnancy—defined as less than 200 milligrams per day—is perfectly fine.

If you’re breastfeeding, you probably need that coffee even more! Taking care of a newborn (and yourself) is tiring work. Good news: You can still have up to three cups a day, if you’re careful. Experts suggest drinking it right after a nursing session, to give the caffeine time to make its way out of your system. Otherwise, you can pass it through your milk, and we’re pretty sure nobody wants a jittery baby on their hands.