One per day is safe. Just be careful with aspartame (the artificial sweetener): http://www.pregnancytoday.com/expertqa/drink/are-diet-sodas-ok-to-drink-during-pregnancy-1196/
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No soda/cola- diet or regular during pregnancy, . Just normal healthy food. That's what I would recommend if my wife is pregnant.
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It is never a good idea to expose a growing human to the unknown effects of modern chemicals. There are just too many unanswered questions about so many synthetic substances. The growing rates of autism, and other attention disorders is enough to cause any Mother to be wary of anything that hasn't been a part of natural human food sources for at least a few hundred years.

Also, there is the theory of toxic load. It proposes that each of us has a level of "contamination" we can tolerate before we begin to suffer the ill effects of environmental toxins like smog, food additives, cosmetic chemicals, cleaners, and pesticides. Not really knowing what that level is for your growing child, it would seem best to err on the side of caution, and not expose your child to anything that is not absolutely neccesary.

Why risk it? There is nothing so refreshing as a tall, cool glass of water.
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It depends on whether you believe aspartame is a neurotoxin, as many people believe.

I can tell you my own experience. I'm sensitive to aspartame. The day I drank my first Diet Coke with aspartame, which was just after it hit the market, I ended up spending the weekend in the hospital. I'd just had my first serious migraine, and only the second I'd ever had in my life.From that point on, I had them.

But when I became pregnant with my first child, my O.B. told me I needed to quit them. He said that there was enough doubt in professional circles; that all the positive news was coming from the manufacturer and none at all was coming from outside them, but plenty of negatives were.

I stopped consuming aspartame and my migraines stopped. Until one of my co-workers gave me a sugar-free mint, and I accepted it without reading the label. I never ate that kind of thing much so never thought to check.

An hour later, my colleagues were offering to either drive me home or call me an ambulance.

At that point I started telling friends and family to please tell me if they were putting anything sugar-free/diet in anything they brought to picnics/pitch-ins. But my sis-in-law thought I just didn't like the taste, and so tried to trick me by making my favorite dessert without telling me the truth. I ended up so sick I almost lost my job--it was a holiday weekend, and normally they had a no-tolerance policy about absences after holiday weekends. Everyone remembered, though, how ill I'd been a few months prior, so I only got a reprimand. Gee, thanks. How behavior-changing of you.

Since then, I don't consume aspartame. Last summer, I found out that Splenda does something similar to me--I don't get the bend-in-half nausea, but I get excruciating pain; and rather than lasting 3 days, these last 3 weeks. This is why I'm such a big advocate of Stevia.

More ominously, the baby I was pregnant with when I learned I couldn't handle aspartame is now 12, and has such terrible migraines he had to be dropped from his year-end ballet recital. His younger sisters so far do not appear to have trouble with aspartame, knock on wood--both have been known to beg a sip from grandparents. He had been bumming diet drinks from friends at the ballet school. I didn't know about this until last week, and since he has realized the connection, he quit drinking them and now his long-term migraine is fading. I hope he'll have the success I have had with quitting aspartame altogether resulting in almost no migraines.

Since I have realized this problem, I've talked to literally dozens of people with similar problems. Some people will get really bad stomach trouble but no head trouble.

This is a trailer for a documentary on aspartame. The entire video is available on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n-gA0wvi84

Here are a few links to read more.
Source(s):
http://www.sweetpoison.com/

http://www.mercola.com/article/aspartame/dangers.htm

http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/

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Artificial sweeteners and caffeine are recommended in moderation. Aspertame (Nutrasweet) is not recommended for women that have PKU or high levels of phenylalanine in their blood. Saccharine, Stevia, and Cyclamate are not recommended at all.

Caffeine during pregnancy should be limited to150mg to 300mg a day. It is a stimulant and it will be taken in by the baby. This will affect the sleeping and movement patterns of the baby during the pregnancy. It is inconclusive whether or not caffeine could cause birth defects on humans, but there are animal test studies that indicate this. It is easy to consume more than the recommended amount. One Starbucks coffee can easily place you over the recommended daily limits. To be safe, it is best to avoid caffeine throughout the pregnancy.
Source(s):
http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancyhealth/caffeine.html
http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancyhealth/artificialsweetner.htm

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Diet Coke contains no sugar but a little caffeine. A moderate use would not harm your baby nor your wife. Monitor cardiac health of both from time to time and stop your wife assuming caffeine ( and other cardio tonic ) only in case of problems.
However no answer is better than the one given by your family doctor !
And ... oh congratulations :)
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