When Should You Take Prenatal Vitamins?
It’s best to start taking prenatal vitamins while you’re trying to get pregnant. Don’t worry if you didn’t take prenatal vitamins before you got pregnant. Many women haven’t in the past, and they still had healthy babies.
Just start taking them as soon as you know you’re pregnant. When you get pregnant, ask your doctor which prenatal vitamin is best for you. If you’ve been taking one already, bring the bottle in so your doctor can check its nutrients.
How Will Prenatal Vitamins Make You Feel?
Prenatal vitamins may make you queasy, especially if you already have bouts of nausea. To ease nausea: Try taking vitamins with food or before you go to sleep. Drink water to wash down the extra fiber and help you digest it more easily.
What About Other Extra Vitamins?
A prenatal vitamin includes all the vitamins and minerals a pregnant woman needs. For example, large doses of vitamin A may cause birth defects. There is one supplement you may want to ask your doctor about even though it is included in most PNV.
Omega-3 fatty acids may help your baby’s brain develop. If you don’t eat fish high in omega-3s (anchovies, herring, salmon, sardines) your doctor may recommend an omega-3 supplement.
What Are Prenatal Vitamins?
Prenatal vitamins are meant to bridge the nutritional gap.
They aren’t a replacement for a healthy diet.
How Are Prenatal Vitamins Different From Traditional Multivitamins?
Lots of different prenatal vitamin types are available on the market. While there’s not a specific formulation for all prenatal vitamins, you’ll likely find that prenatal vitamins contain at least these key nutrients: Calcium. Prenatal vitamins typically have between 200 and 300 mg of calcium.
Taking in enough folic acid is linked with reducing neural tube defects like spina bifida. Foods that have folic acid (also known as folate) include beans, leafy green vegetables, asparagus, and broccoli. This mineral is necessary to create new red blood cells in the body.
When Should I Take Prenatal Vitamins?
If you’re trying to conceive or are pregnant, your doctor will likely recommend that you take them. While you can buy prenatal vitamins over the counter, doctors can prescribe them too. Doctors often recommend that women who are breastfeeding also continue taking prenatal vitamins after delivery.
Prenatal vitamins can serve as a further supplement to lactating women who need plenty of nutrients to make breast milk. Even if you aren’t trying to get pregnant, you still might want to take a folic acid supplement. That’s because half of the pregnancies in the United States aren’t planned.
Women of childbearing age could also eat more folate-rich foods as an alternative to taking a supplement.
Can I Take Prenatal Vitamins If I Don’T Want To Get Pregnant?
They’re geared to make up the common nutritional deficiencies a pregnant woman could have. But they aren’t really intended for women (or men) who aren’t expecting or lactating. Taking too much folic acid each day can have the adverse side effect of masking a vitamin B-12 deficiency.
Getting too much iron is associated with health problems like constipation, nausea, and diarrhea. Again, it’s better if you get these nutrients through your diet instead of a pill. For these reasons, most women should skip prenatal vitamins unless their doctors tell them otherwise.