The Benefits of Supplements During Your Pregnancy

If you’re pregnant, you want to give your baby the best start possible. This means eating a healthy diet and taking a pre-natal vitamin and mineral supplement.

The best time to begin taking a vitamin and mineral supplement, however, is several months before you become pregnant. If you’re deficient in certain nutrients, your baby is at risk of a number of birth defects. For example, if you don’t have enough folic acid in your body at the time of conception and during your first weeks of pregnancy, your baby could develop any one of a number of defects including spina bifida, cleft palate, heart defects, limb defects or incomplete brain development. Therefore, all women of childbearing age should consume at least 400 mcgs of folic acid each day.

There’s also some indication that a deficiency in another B vitamin – vitamin B12 – can put your child at risk for a neural tube defect. Vitamin B12 works with folic acid to help your baby develop the myelin sheath that’s a part of the baby's developing nervous system. Homocysteine levels are also kept in check by these two vitamins – elevated homocysteine levels are thought to play a role in birth defects as well. For this reason, women of childbearing age should also get adequate amounts of vitamin B12 every day.

Anemia is another common problem among pregnant women, as a woman's blood volume increases considerably when she’s pregnant. Iron sulfate, also known as ferrous sulfate, can reduce this risk, but may also cause constipation. If you suffer from this complication, your care provider may recommend a different from of iron. You should also include iron rich foods in your diet and address any pre-existing anemia before conception.

Unsurprisingly, you also need adequate amounts of calcium while you’re pregnant. When your baby's bones are developing, if adequate amounts of calcium aren’t present, calcium will be taken from your bones for the baby, which can lead to osteoporosis later in life. To prevent this, make sure you’re getting enough calcium for yourself and your baby. Calcium can also help your blood pressure remain stable, help you sleep better and, together with the mineral magnesium, help you avoid the painful leg cramps that can affect pregnant women.

In recent years, we’ve also learned about the importance of essential fatty acids, which you may have called Omega-3 and Omega 6 fatty acids. One Omega-3 fatty acid called DHA is needed for proper development of your baby's brain and eyes. Studies have also shown that when pregnant women get adequate amounts of essential fatty acids, they have a lower risk of delivering their babies too early. You can include Omega-3 fatty acids in your diet by eating cold water fish like salmon or by eating walnuts and flax seeds. It’s more likely, however, that you’ll need to take a supplement to get the recommended amount – talk with your health care provider to make sure you choose one that will provide you with the nutrients you need, while avoiding any potential metal contamination that may result from the use of fish oil products.

When you’re pregnant, the medications you can take safely are limited, so you want to avoid becoming ill. One important way to accomplish this is to have a strong immune system. To keep your immune system strong, you should include probiotics – helpful bacteria – in your diet, especially if you have had to take any sort of antibiotic. Look for a probiotic supplement that contains acidophilus, lactobacillus and bifidobacterium. These are also important during breastfeeding, and have been shown to reduce the likelihood that your child may develop eczema after birth.