We love sharing our insights about vitamins and health. For that, you should talk to your doctor! Colleen Welsch has been writing about women's nutrition, health, fitness, and the clean beauty industry for many years.
Born and raised in Ohio, Colleen recently returned to the U. In her spare time, Colleen loves traveling and petting dogs. View more posts. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Skip to content Truth vs. Compared to a regular multivitamin, they have more of some nutrients that you need during pregnancy. Your health care provider may prescribe a prenatal vitamin for you, or you can buy them over the counter without a prescription.
Take a prenatal vitamin every day during pregnancy. Your body uses vitamins, minerals and other nutrients in food to strong and healthy. During pregnancy, your growing baby gets all necessary nutrients from you.
So you may need more during pregnancy than you did before. Your prenatal vitamin contains the right amount of nutrients you need during pregnancy. For example, your provider may recommend that you take a vitamin supplement to help you get more vitamin D, iron or calcium. Folic acid is a B vitamin that every cell in your body needs for healthy growth and development. Taking folic acid before and during early pregnancy can help prevent birth defects of the brain and spine called neural tube defects also called NTDs.
Start taking 4, mcg at least 3 months before you get pregnant and through the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. You can get too much of other nutrients, which may be harmful to your health. Your provider can help you figure out the best and safest way for you to get the right amount of folic acid. You can also get folic acid from food. Citrus fruits, green leafy vegetables and beans are all excellent sources of folic acid.
Some foods are also enriched with folic acid, such as cereals, bread, rice and pasta. Iron is a mineral. Your body uses iron to make hemoglobin, a protein that helps carry oxygen from your lungs to the rest of your body. You need twice as much iron during pregnancy than you did before pregnancy. Your body needs this iron to make more blood so it can carry oxygen to your baby. Your baby needs iron to make his own blood. During pregnancy, you need 27 milligrams of iron each day.
Most prenatal vitamins have this amount. You also can get iron from food. Good sources of iron include:. Foods containing vitamin C can increase the amount of iron your body absorbs. It's a good idea to eat foods like orange juice, tomatoes, strawberries and grapefruit every day. Calcium in dairy products like milk and coffee, tea, egg yolks, fiber and soybeans can block your body from absorbing iron.
Try to avoid these when eating iron-rich foods. During pregnancy, you need 1, milligrams of calcium each day. You can get this amount by taking your prenatal vitamin and eating food that has a lot of calcium in it. Good sources of calcium include:. This can cause health conditions, such as osteoporosis, later in life. Osteoporosis causes your bones become thin and break easily.
Vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium. Your immune system protects your body from infection. During pregnancy, you need IU international units of vitamin D each day.
When there is work to do, your genes produce a lot of enzymes. Many of these enzymes require vitamins and minerals to work. Without vitamins and minerals, your enzymes cannot work well and, as a result, you experience symptoms. In the same way that your car cannot work without gas and your stove cannot work without gas or electricity, your enzymes cannot work without vitamins and minerals.
This is why a prenatal vitamin can be so useful. It provides the needed tools for your enzymes. If so, a prenatal vitamin may be appropriate for you. Personally, as a man, I alternate between Optimal Multivitamin Plus, a very comprehensive multivitamin, and Optimal Prenatal with Plant-Based Protein, a prenatal vitamin in a protein powder base. However, when I am on vacation I rarely take a multivitamin at all—perhaps only a few days a week. Because my enzymes are not experiencing a ton of work at the moment.
I am relaxed, not working hard, not teaching, not researching, sleeping well, and enjoying my time in the sun playing with my family. Too many vitamins and minerals clog your enzymes just like too much gas in your engine floods it and prevents it from starting. Balance is essential and there can be too much of a good thing. Educational information can give you questions to ask your physician, but only your doctor has the bigger picture of your health factors in view.
If you simply want higher doses of the nutrients typically included in prenatal vitamins then taking one may be right for you. Some non-prenatal formulations will have more nutrients or differing amounts, so it really comes down to reading supplement labels and understanding what the nutrients do for you.
A big clue as to whether something is beneficial for you or not, when it comes to nutrient supplementation, is how it makes you feel. Sometimes a doctor might recommend a specific supplement to you. Pregnancy is a time of extreme demand as cells literally reproduce at a frenzying pace to create a new human being. Beyond that, a woman needs the additional support as a large portion of her nutrient supplies are being transferred to nourish the baby.
The same could be true for someone who goes through intensive months of training for a marathon or other major event, and eventually finds themselves depleted of energy and nutrients. However, taking it for several more months in advance will only continue to prepare your body for conception. Physiologically speaking, you have the anatomy and hormones of a woman who could be pregnant, and nourishing these pathways can be effectively done by supplementing with prenatal nutrients.
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