What prenatal did you take?

Let’s start with, everyone has different needs! Here’s a short list of what I thought about when choosing mine.

Folate - super important in the first few weeks, which is why I started taking a prenatal even before I got pregnant. What I learned is that Folate and Folic Acid are NOT identical. Folic acid is synthetic Folate, and some people (estimates around 50-60%) can't metabolize folic acid correctly. If you want you can do a genetic test to see if you’re able to metabolize folic acid correctly, or you can look for a prenatal that has methylfolate (also called 5-MTHF), which is the good stuff in its natural form. It has become much, much easier to find in prenatals since I was pregnant with Cimorene.

DHA - important for baby brain and eye development. What I learned is that fish-oil derived omega-3s and flaxseed derived omega-3s are not the same, and research now suggests that the human body rarely converts the ALA omega-3 to the DHA omega-3. Algae-derived Omega-3s are indeed DHA, but more research is needed to determine whether they are equivalent from a nutritional perspective. So because I’m not vegetarian, and the fish oil didn’t bother my stomach), I got my DHA from fish-derived omega-3s. (Separate from my prenatal.)

Iron - you might need this, you might not, so I picked a prenatal that was iron free. My OBGYN tested early on to see if I was anemic and needed iron. With my first I did, with my second I didn’t. Iron had some icky (constipation, hooray) side effects so I also ate lots of bananas and prunes.

There are way too many components to dive into here, but I used this site as a resource when I was first looking. Science is learning new stuff every day, and it looks like she’s updating her site regularly to stay on top of this.