Vitamins and Pregnancy

A good balance of nutrients for both your baby and yourself during pregnancy is highly important although the topic of how you can achieve this is quite difficult. The main reason behind this is that meeting all the nutritional requirements during pregnancy through a regular diet is difficult and there is a huge chance that you will need to take extra vitamin supplements. This immediately includes folic acid, one member of the B complex vitamins that is highly important during pregnancy. It is even quite useful when you are trying to conceive a baby. All women that are deficient in folic acid have an increased risk that their baby will develop neural tube defects like spina bifida, which is the most common one. If this is your case you must immediately start taking folic acid supplements or multivitamin supplements that include in their formulas higher doses of folic acid. The truth is that you will need to take folic acid in increased daily quantities (400 mcg) until the end of the 12th week of pregnancy. If you have a history of giving birth to a child with neural tube defects the folic acid dose can be increased to 5 mg but this must only be advised by your doctor.

In most cases if you are healthy you will not really need to take too much extra vitamin supplements when you are pregnant. A normal, balanced, healthy diet can provide everything needed in terms of nutrients for the woman and the baby. Most specialists will recommend that you first pay attention to what you eat and only after that should you be attentive to what you lack in your diet. Many women are first thinking about vitamin supplements instead of thinking about regular nutrition. The problem with vitamins and pregnancy is that there are some special vitamins that need to be included in your daily diet. On the other hand, it is crucial that we understand the fact that we must not only think about those vitamins. All vitamins are important for the normal functioning of the woman’s body, even if she is pregnant or not. Also, the human body does not only require vitamins. It also needs other nutrients like protein, minerals and so on. Some minerals are also highly important when talking about pregnancy but the rest of them are equally important for the well being of the woman.

We do not recommend that you take vitamin supplements during pregnancy without medical advice, especially if we are talking about larger quantities than usual. Some vitamins can actually have a harmful impact on your baby instead of aiding him/her grow and we do not want that to happen. Vitamin A is only the first example that comes to mind. Larger doses have been linked with some birth defects so avoidance of supplements that contain vitamin A is recommended. You can even avoid foods that are rich in this vitamin and not eat them too often (the biggest source of vitamin A being located in liver).