Healthy Habits: Choosing a Pre-Natal Vitamin

Doing best by your baby is no easy feat from avoiding sushi to exercising regularly, not to mention that you’re inundated with conflicting advice and product options. One of the first decisions you’ll make for you and your baby is which prenatal vitamin to start taking. But, with countless options to consider – organic, chewable, gummies, with iron, without iron – how are you supposed to choose? “The right prenatal vitamin will of course contain folic acid, and, will not irritate any pre-pregnancy conditions. Unaware of what ingredients exacerbate a condition? Talk to your doctor,” says Gloria Richard Davis, MD, OB/GYN at the University of Arkansas.

I had a chance to interview Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, clinical professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the Yale University School of Medicine to learn more.

Folic acid is crucial-and we always encourage women trying to conceive to be on folic acid when they conceive-because we have very good data showing that women who conceive when they are on folic acid substantially reduce the risk of the baby developing a neural tube defect-it may also decrease other congenital defects as well.And of course we encourage women to stay on a prenatal vitamin for the duration of the pregnancy.
Any one particular vitamin can "upset the stomach"-so if someone develops some gastrointestinal issues on one prenatal vitamin I will switch them to another one. One prescription prenatal  that is very well tolerated is OBComplete.