If you’re here, then you probably Google’d: what does too much vitamin a do in pregnancy.
Why You Need Vitamin A During Pregnancy
Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin that’s stored in the liver. Vitamin A is particularly essential for women who are about to give birth because it helps with postpartum tissue repair. There are two forms of vitamin A: preformed vitamin A and provitamin A carotenoids.
Contents
A, also known as retinol, has several important functions.
Abstract
Vitamin A is a crucial micronutrient for pregnant women and their fetuses. In addition to being essential for morphological and functional development and for ocular integrity, vitamin A exerts systemic effects on several fetal organs and on the fetal skeleton.
Vitamin A requirements during pregnancy are therefore greater. Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) remains the leading cause of preventable blindness in the world. Given the importance of this topic and the lack of a complete, up-to-date review on vitamin A and pregnancy, an extensive review of the literature was conducted to identify conflicting or incomplete data on the topic as well as any gaps in existing data.
Keywords: Vitamin A, vitamin A deficiency, pregnancy.
Why Is Vitamin A So Important During Pregnancy?
Too much can harm your developing baby and lead to birth defects1, while too little carries certain risks to you and your baby’s development5. And because it’s a fat-soluble vitamin, your body can build up stores of it in your liver, ready for when you need it.
If you’d like any more advice, do speak to your healthcare professional. Your Reference Nutrient Intake (RNI) of vitamin A in pregnancy – the amount considered to be enough to meet most people’s needs – is slightly higher than normal, at 100mcg per day6. Half a cup of raw carrots contains 459mcg of vitamin A, and half a cup of broccoli contains 60mcg of vitamin A7.
You can always talk to your midwife or healthcare professional if you’d like any more advice. While a healthy intake is important throughout your pregnancy, your risk of deficiency is higher during your third trimester when requirements increase due to your baby’s accelerated development and increased blood volume.