Will Taking A Prenatal Vitamin Help You to Get Pregnant?
If you follow me on Instagram or have read some of my other blog posts, you’ll have noticed that I talk a lot about prenatal vitamins. This is because there is so much misconception and misunderstanding when it comes to prenatal supplements. It’s also because choosing a prenatal supplement and understanding if I even needed one in the first place was something that I struggled with during my own pregnancy journey. My goal is to help you out by providing all the information you need on this subject so that you can make your own informed decisions about taking prenatal vitamins!
Today I’m answering a question that I’ve been asked by a few clients who are preparing for pregnancy: will prenatal vitamins help me to get pregnant? Or, to put it another way: will taking prenatals increase fertility?
What is a Prenatal Vitamin?
A prenatal vitamin (aka prenatal supplement, prenatal multi, or even just prenatal) is a multivitamin supplement designed for pregnancy that includes various vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that may be important during pregnancy.
If that sounds super vague to you, that’s kind of the point! You see, there is no standard formula for prenatal supplements. Each company or brand has their own formulation, and as a result, prenatal vitamins vary in terms of which nutrients are included, the amounts of each nutrient, and the non-medicinal ingredients (things such as preservatives, fillers, sweeteners, colourants, etc). So if you take two different brands of prenatals and compare the ingredient list side-by-side, you’ll notice a ton of differences.
Will Taking a Prenatal Help You to Get Pregnant?
Will taking prenatals increase fertility and increase your chances of getting pregnant? The short answer is: it depends.
The longer answer is that some prenatal vitamins contain nutrients that are important and/or beneficial for fertility (examples of these include omega-3s, vitamin C, vitamin E, B vitamins, zinc, and antioxidants). If you are deficient in any of these nutrients, taking a prenatal may help to boost your levels. If nutrient deficiency is potentially creating fertility issues, taking a prenatal vitamin might help with fertility.
But…
The formulation of your chosen prenatal supplement may not be the right fit for you. There may be nutrients you need that are not included in that particular supplement. The nutrients in the prenatal supplement may be in the wrong form or may not be enough to sufficiently fill your nutrient stores to support fertility. Folate is a good example here. While this vitamin is typically included in prenatal vitamins, the form of the vitamin can vary, and some forms may not be well-absorbed. For more information, check out the full blog post I’ve written on this issue: Folate vs Folic Acid: What You Need to Know.
A prenatal vitamin is rarely a good substitute for real food and a healthy diet. You can take the world’s best prenatal supplement, but if your diet relies heavily on processed food items that contain few nutrients, it is unlikely that your unicorn supplement will have any impact on your chances of getting pregnant.
There are many, many other factors involved in fertility and getting pregnant. These include things like stress management, movement and exercise, toxin exposure, hormonal balance, and your overall health and well-being. Taking a prenatal vitamin is not going to resolve those issues. But addressing these issues may help with fertility.
Other Reasons to Take a Prenatal When Preparing for Pregnancy
While a prenatal vitamin may not necessarily increase fertility or help you to get pregnant, there is another reason why you might want to consider taking a prenatal supplement if you are preparing for a pregnancy.
The first several weeks of pregnancy are known as a critical period of development for your baby. This is when the embyro’s major structures and organs (such as the spine, heart, brain, and limbs) are formed. The chart below gives a visual representation of how the vast majority of your baby’s structural development occurs within the first 8 weeks of pregnancy.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK582659/
What’s crazy about this is that for a big part of this 8-week period, many women don’t even know that they are pregnant (especially since pregnancy start date is typically counted as the day your last period started). Yet during this period, there are several nutrients that are vital for proper embryo development. If your stores of these nutrients are low enough that there is not enough for baby, there is a real risk of your baby developing defects. One of the most widely-known links is the one between folate deficiency and spinal cord defects, which is why prenatal supplements usually contain some form of folate.
Even more concerning is that some of these vital nutrients take a good amount of time to build up in your body. The omega-3 fatty acid DHA is an example of this. DHA is needed for baby’s eyes and brain development. But it can take 8 weeks to accumulate in your red blood cells in levels high enough to be passed along to your baby, meaning that your DHA stores need to be sufficient even before pregnancy.
This is why many healthcare providers recommend taking a prenatal supplement when preparing for a pregnancy and trying to conceive- so that you build up your nutrient stores in advance and therefore have sufficient amounts to grow your baby when you do get pregnant.
While I always advocate a food first approach when appropriate, if you are planning a pregnancy and are not able to get adequate amounts of key nutrients through your diet, this is a situation where you would want to consider taking a good quality prenatal supplement.
How do you know if you’re getting enough of these key nutrients? Your doctor may be able to test for some of them (whether they’re willing to is another story…). But this is where I come in! As a holistic nutritionist, through my comprehensive client intake process, I am able to assess your diet, lifestyle, and medical and personal history to determine if there is the potential for deficiencies in key nutrients. We then work together to implement a plan to make sure you get those key nutrients in ample amounts (through diet, supplements, or a combination of the two) and are able to adequately nourish yourself and your baby during pregnancy.
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