The Essential Guide to Prenatal Vitamins

Are You Getting the Right Nutrients for Your Pregnancy?⁠
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Pregnancy is a journey of nourishment, and your prenatal vitamins play a crucial role in providing essential nutrients for you and your baby. 
Join me on the latest episode of For Vaginas Only as we dive deep into the world of prenatal vitamins!⁠
🌟 Discover the key vitamins your body craves during this transformative time and understand why each nutrient matters.⁠
🌟 From folic acid to iron, talk through the options for a healthy pregnancy journey.⁠
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#prenatalvitamins #obgyntips #pregnancytips

Transcript

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Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Four Vaginas Only. In this episode, we are going to talk about prenatal vitamins. I get the question a lot: which prenatal vitamin should I take? Which prenatal vitamin is the best? Which prenatal vitamin do you recommend, Dr. Celestine? And in this podcast episode, we're going to talk about it and we're going to talk about the reasons why. And I'll actually give you my top two prenatal vitamins that I like as an OBGYN and recommend for my patients. But first, let's cue the music. Hello and welcome to For Vaginas Only, the podcast about everything female. I'm your host, Dr. Celestine, bringing you important information about understanding your health and body in the way you wish your doctor would actually explain it. I never get tired of that music. Welcome to another episode. I'm Dr. C or Dr. Celestine, and we're gonna talk about prenatal vitamins. So let's just jump right into it. Okay, so first and foremost, I want everybody to understand that most vitamins and that includes prenatal vitamins are not regulated by the FDA. What that means is that each vitamin company doesn't necessarily have to prove to anybody that a certain amount of vitamin is in their product, and there's no actual regulations to the creation of prenatal vitamins, which is kind of crazy to think about because we have so much regulation when it comes to pregnancy and having a fetus inside of you when it comes to government policy, things like that. But prenatal vitamins, something that almost every pregnant woman takes that affects her and her baby, is not really regulated. So that's kind of crazy when you think about it. With that being said, as long as we trust some of these companies that are creating the prenatals, then me as an OBGYN can recommend certain ones to my patients. Now, I never used to have the actual brand that I recommended. I would always say to get a prenatal vitamin, which most contain the right amount of folic acid, which is of high priority. And I like prenatals that also contain DHA, which is a type of like fish byproduct, almost like a fish oil, if you want to call it that, and can help with a lot of different things in pregnancy, including the brain kind of like functioning of uh the fetus. But now I have a recommendation. Two actually, one that's a little higher priced and one that's a little bit more moderately priced. And if you want to know what those are, you're gonna have to listen to the episode and I'll talk to you about it at the end. Okay, so prenatal vitamin versus a regular multivitamin, a little bit different, and the reason why that is is because you need more nutrients in a prenatal vitamin, especially folic acid, which is of the highest priority to prevent something called neural tube defects. If you've ever heard of spina bifida or anencephaly, it's all about the spine, brain, and central nervous system of the baby forming. And the interesting part about the folic acid that's needed for that is that the neural tube, which forms all those structures, actually is pretty much done being formed in your fetus by the time you're about five weeks pregnant. So it's ideal to start a prenatal vitamin before you even start trying to get pregnant because most people will not even get a positive pregnancy test until three to four weeks of pregnancy. And by that point, the neural tube is already forming and you've kind of missed that opportunity to get that extra folic acid in. So anybody that's trying to get pregnant, word of caution, word of advice, start prenatal vitamins now and take them daily. I am not gonna bore you with all of the amounts that are needed in each, or else I feel like this podcast episode can go on forever. But in general, and I've looked at a few studies recently, one study that I really like that's evidence-based that looked at over 200 scholarly articles to kind of come up with a recommendation of the amount of vitamin that should be the amount of each vitamin that should be in your prenatal. I thought was really complete, really thorough, and I'm gonna share a little bit of that with you today. So, in general, folic acid, you need at least 400 micrograms in your prenatal vitamin. And if you've had an issue with a neural tube defect in a prior pregnancy, you actually need even more than that. You can get folic acid from foods. In fact, you can get a lot of these kind of vitamins and minerals from foods, but I will say during pregnancy especially, it's not enough because as your blood volume increases, as all of the vitamins and minerals that are within you go to forming your unborn child, it's like depletes you of them. So you need even more than if you're not pregnant. So, although I know a lot of people out there want to do a diet-based version of getting prenatal vitamins, I will honestly tell you that that's not enough and that you should pick a prenatal vitamin supplement as well. But back to folic acid, some things that have it are dark leafy green vegetables like asparagus, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, um, also peanuts, fresh fruits, whole grains are fortified with them. Certain cereals, certain breads, if you look at the label will say with folic acid. Liver has it, if that's kind of your fancy in terms of eating. So you can get a lot of these nutrients and a lot of these vitamins from diet, but like I said, in pregnancy, not enough, guys. Not enough. Other things that are important in folic acid in terms of vitamins are vitamin A, about 4,000 international units, um, helps with hypertension in pregnancy. For example, vitamin C, about 200 international units, have been linked to decreasing risk of breaking your water earlier in pregnancy than you would like it to happen. Um, vitamin E as well, about 28 international units. Biotin, which I know a lot of us take for our hair, skin, and nails when we're not pregnant. You can have a little bit of that in pregnancy as well, and has been linked to helping with some um or preventing some birth defects, about 100 milligrams um a day while you're pregnant. DHA, which I talked about earlier, about 600 milligrams daily is what you need in pregnancy. Vitamin K is also important, and then some minerals as well, like calcium, which has been linked to decreasing chance of uh preoclampsia. If you don't know what preoclampsia is, I have a whole episode on that. It's high blood pressure in pregnancy that can be really dangerous. About 500 milligrams of that you need. Copper, iodine, preventing hypothyroidism, you should have iron. Every pregnant woman should have at least some iron in their prenatal vitamin because the iron diminishes so much. Um, anemia is a very thing that happens to almost every pregnant woman. They get pretty anemic by the third trimester. So having it in your prenatal vitamin, and then we follow it closely in pregnancy. And I would say more often than not, I also end up supplementing with extra iron during the pregnancy because it diminishes. Magnesium, zinc, all of these things are also important and have been linked to actually benefiting pregnancy and decreasing certain risks of pregnancy like preterm birth, preterm delivery. So not only that, but it's beneficial for you because, like I said, all of these vitamins, all of these minerals kind of get sucked out of you by your fetus because you're building a whole human being. So these are all the components of that, if you think of it that way. And as the pregnancy progresses, you need different sets of nutrients and usually more of certain nutrients as the trimesters go along. So you need more, like a little bit of iron, for example, in your first trimester, a little bit more in your second trimester, and a little bit more in the third trimester, usually, as just an example of one of the minerals that are needed, and that the dose kind of changes as the pregnancy goes along. Vitamin B6 is also important for those mamas out there that know that a lot of pregnant women get very nauseous and vomiting in the first trimester. We usually prescribe like a supplement of vitamin B6, so having it in your prenatal vitamin already can be beneficial in that respect. So there's lots and lots of different vitamins and minerals that are important, chromium, things like that, you know? And you cannot get it all just from your diet. Diet is great, and eating a diverse amount of foods during pregnancy is really important, but it's not gonna be enough. I'm sorry, it's just not. Even so the DHA, which is kind of like a fish oil, people try to supplement it with certain fish in their pregnancy, but remember certain fish you can't even eat a lot of during your pregnancy because of mercury or high mercury risks. So it's important to get it in supplemental form. Okay, so now finally, what are my recommendations? So I kind of have two recommendations. First and foremost, I'll say there's this app called the Prenatal Rater, and it was actually created by the study that I was referring to, where you can look up your prenatal vitamin and see how it compares to other prenatal vitamins in terms of the recommendations from that study in how many minerals and vitamins or the amounts of each you should have. So you can look on there yourself. And my two favorites, one is on the higher end and has a lot more pills you need to take every single day. And I will say the majority of prenatal vitamins, you need supplementation with them. So although it's great to take one pill a day or two pills a day, most of the time that's not enough. So my first recommendation has a lot of pills, and the second one is only two pills that you take daily and is at a lower price point. So both of them are really great. Both of them, you might need minimal, if any, extra supplementation. But make sure, like I said, these are my recommendations I give to my patients, but you should always talk to your doctor about what you need because every single person has different risks in their pregnancy and might need different supplements. So make sure you check with your doctor. All right, so the first one, which is at the higher price point, is the healthy nest prenatal vitamins. And they're created by a company called Healthy Baby. You can find them online. I think they might also be in Target right now. And a few reasons why I like them. They actually hit a hundred percent of the supplementation in a lot of the vitamins and minerals that you need in pregnancy. And two, they actually change what vitamins and minerals and the dosages as your pregnancy goes along. So they have dose packs for the first trimester, second trimester, third trimester, and even postpartum. So I really, really like that a lot. Um, they are a little bit expensive. You can buy it monthly, you can buy enough for a whole trimester. So take a look at their website, healthybaby.com, and it's a lot of pills. So most of the time you're taking like eight pills a day. So, like a daytime serving and an evening serving. So it's a lot to keep up with, but it has a lot of what you need in there for pregnancy, including a good amount of the DHA that I always recommend should be in your prenatal vitamin and at baseline, the amount of folic acid that you need as well, which should always be in a prenatal prenatal vitamin, no matter who you are or what's going on in your pregnancy. It's just the amounts might differ. So, healthy babies, healthy nest vitamin is my first recommendation that I would say, but it's at a higher price point. The other thing I would say for anybody out there that's vegetarian, these prenatals are great. They are not vegan, but their DHA actually is kind of a separate pill that's part of the prenatal dose pack that you will be taking. And their website states that if you take out that DHA pill and you kind of swap it with another form of DHA that is vegetarian friendly, then all the rest of the pills in their pill pack are actually vegetarian friendly, just not the DHA one. So you can swap it out and talk to your doctor about how to safely do that to still stick with your type of diet. So that's great for the vegetarian people out there. And the second one that's at a little better price point, a little fewer pills that you need to take, about two a day, is the Vitamin Shop, S-H-O-P-P-E, their prenatal plus DHA multivitamin for a healthy pregnancy, is my second recommendation. Um, it's a much better price point for a monthly pack or a monthly bottle, rather. And it has a good amount of the vitamins and supplements that you need in a pregnancy, and you only have to take two tablets a day to get that amount. So those are my two recommendations. I tell them to you, I tell them to my patients. But like I said, make sure before you start taking them that you talk to your OBGYN or pregnancy care provider about if they are a good vitamin for you. And that's it. Short and sweet, my prenatal vitamin episode. I'm sure new vitamins will come on the market, and there might be others that I might recommend in the future. Maybe we'll do a little podcast update later on, but for now, these are my recommendations, and this is what you need to know about what supplements you need to take. Make sure you talk to your doctor, like I've said a hundred times in this episode, so I'm sure you guys know by now. And that's it for this episode. Thanks you guys so much for listening. Follow me at For Vagennas Only on Instagram and on TikTok. And stay tuned for the next episode in a couple weeks. Bye.