Now that you’re pregnant, it seems everyone you know is adding something new onto that mile-long No-No List. Take, for instance, chocolate. For goodness sake! Unless she’s allergic to it, what woman can possibly live without chocolate? Then there’s soda. You can’t drink regular soda because it’s full of caffeine, sugar, empty calories and has no nutritional value. So what about diet soda? You look on The List, and sure enough, someone’s added it, too!

The truth is, studies have shown that aspartame, better known as Equal™, the artificial sweetener used in many diet sodas is not harmful to most pregnant women or their fetuses. Aspartame is proven to not penetrate the placental barrier to the fetus. The exception to the safety of aspartame for use by pregnant women is for those who have a family history of PKU (phenylketonuria). These women are unable to digest certain amino acids found in aspartame, and should avoid using it unless it’s OK’d by their doctor after a simple blood test.

Another artificial sweetener found in diet drinks is saccharine. In restaurants, it’s the sweetener in the pink packet. In laboratory tests, the offspring of rats who had been given very high doses of saccharine had significantly higher rates of certain birth defects. Using saccharine during your pregnancy is something you may want to carefully consider.

Sucralose (Splenda™) is the newest artificial sweetener on the market. It’s made from regular table sugar, and has not yet been extensively tested for effects on pregnant women. So far, it appears to be safe, but many experts recommend limited use of Sucralose.

There are two reasons diet soda is on The No-No List. The first is caffeine content.

Caffeine is a stimulant that raises the heart rate and blood pressure. Not good. Because it also causes more frequent urination, it can lead to dehydration. Also not good. Caffeine passes through the placental barrier to your fetus, having the same effects on him or her as it does in you. Fetuses can’t metabolize caffeine as you can, so any amount of caffeine can interrupt your baby’s sleep pattern and affect its normal movement patterns. So definitely not good!

But there’s still hope! Most clear diet sodas contain no caffeine at all, and colas and other dark diet sodas also come in caffeine-free versions.

The other reason experts give for not drinking diet soda is that pregnant women often use it as a substitute for water, juice and milk. Both you and your baby need for you to drink at least 6 – 8 full glasses of water per day, and that’s in addition to any milk, fruit juices or other liquids you may drink. Yes, teas and coffee are made with water, but they aren’t water, and don’t count toward your water intake. Most experts will concede though, that drinking one 12-ounce serving of diet soda per day probably won’t harm you or your baby—as long as you drink at least the prescribed amount of water!

In the end, the decision whether to drink diet soda, and how much of it, is up to you. If you do choose to use any product containing artificial sweeteners, be sure to check the label for the type of sweetener used and caffeine content. If you’re good, your doctor might say it’s OK to strike diet soda from The No-No List and add one diet soda per day to your Thank Goodness I Can Have This! List!