Preparing for Baby: When to Start Taking Prenatal Vitamins

You’ve stocked your medicine cabinet with ovulation tests. You’re charting your cycle with a phone app. You’ve taken charge of your fertility and are ready for that bun in your oven. That means you should also be taking prenatal vitamins. 

“Slow your roll!” you might say. “I’m not even pregnant yet! Don’t I need a positive pregnancy test result before I start taking pregnancy-related vitamins?” 

Surprisingly, the best time to start taking prenatal vitamins, regarding a planned pregnancy, is before you get pregnant. If you’ve already been trying to conceive, don’t stress—the second-best time to start is right now.

Our complete 101 on prenatal vitamins will explain why taking a prenatal supplement before pregnancy is important and help you pick the best options. That way, you and your little one will both have optimal support during pregnancy.

Why Prenatals Are Important Before (and During) Pregnancy 

As a pregnant person, you might feel an instant connection to your baby. That connection doesn’t just exist in your head. You two are literally connected by the placenta—an organ in your uterus that links you to your baby and keeps her nourished with the nutrients you ingest through foods and supplements.

Since your baby is deriving her nutrients from the foods and supplements that you eat, it’s important to have enough to supply her and yourself. This is where prenatal vitamins come into play. Prenatals ensure your body has a large reserve of nutrients right from the start of when your womb tenant moves in. And before conception, prenatal vitamins can supplement a fertility diet in order to improve egg quality and support a healthy pregnancy. 

Some of the most important nutrients from prenatal vitamins are:

• Iron – Iron is a critical nutrient that benefits both you and your baby in a variety of ways. For starters, iron builds and strengthens your placenta, which ensures a healthy nutrient delivery system. The placenta also supplies your kiddo with oxygen. 

Additionally, iron makes the extra blood needed during pregnancy to support the uterus and the growth of your baby. Your body needs about 50% more blood than usual when you’re pregnant. Without iron, your body can’t produce this extra blood, and you can become anemic—a condition in which a low red blood cell count prevents the adequate flow of oxygen to your tissues and organs.

Therefore, it’s recommended that pregnant women ingest 27mg of iron a day (compared to the recommended 18mg for non-pregnant women). Fortunately, prenatal vitamins can create an iron repository for you.

• Calcium – If you want your little cutie to grow big and strong, she needs to have healthy bones. For that, you need calcium. It’s recommended that both pregnant women and women trying to conceive get about 1,000mg of calcium a day to support fetal bone growth and teeth development. 
• Folic acid – Though it might be lesser known than the two minerals above, this B-vitamin plays a huge role in your baby’s growth and wellbeing. In fact, folic acid helps prevent Neural Tube Defects (NTDs), a type of major birth defect that stems from development issues in the spinal cord, brain, or either of their coverings. Doctors recommend that pregnant women and women trying to conceive take 600 micrograms of folic acid daily to build up significant reserves and decrease the risk of NTDs.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Prenatal Vitamins 

Regularly taking your prenatal multivitamin will ensure your body has the nutrients it needs to nourish your growing baby. If you want to make sure you’re getting the most out of your prenatal vitamins, here are the best vitamins to take and the length of time to take them. 

Picking the Best Prenatal Vitamin 

You can find prenatal vitamins at any pharmacy or health food store. While most commercially available prenatal vitamins will offer the recommended amounts of key nutrients such as iron, calcium, and folic acid, some prenatals go the extra mile to provide additional baby-benefiting nutrients. 

Here are some other ingredients and vitamins you may want your choice of prenatals to include: 

• DHA – Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is quite a mouthful. But, unlike its name, its effects are pretty straightforward—this omega 3 fatty acid helps with baby brain development. Because our bodies don’t produce significant amounts of DHA naturally, most women don’t have enough of it. One study sampling women of childbearing age found that 95% had a DHA intake below the recommended level of 250mg per day. Fortunately, prenatal vitamins that include DHA can help you meet this recommended intake.  
• Choline – Choline plays an important role in the development of your baby’s brain and eyes. However, like DHA, our bodies don’t produce enough of this nutrient naturally to support our needs, so most adults don’t have enough of it. This is why it may be beneficial to choose a prenatal vitamin with choline on its list of ingredients.
• Vitamin D3 – Even if you’ve never been vitamin D deficient before, when you become pregnant, your recommended intake of vitamin D goes way, way up. The typical recommended intake of vitamin D is 600 IU. Research suggests that when you’re pregnant, the amount of vitamin D your body needs rises to 4000 IU. 

The need for more vitamin D as a pregnant woman  is twofold: vitamin D plays an important role in the absorption and metabolism of calcium, meaning that it helps support your baby’s bone and teeth development. Additionally, vitamin D has been found to work as an immunomodulator, meaning it prevents the immune system from rejecting the new “foreign body” in your body (aka your baby). For this reason, choosing a prenatal vitamin that delivers a significant amount of vitamin D can support your pregnancy as well as your efforts to become pregnant. 

Because every expectant mother is different, it’s also worth checking in with your doctor when choosing your prenatal vitamins. That way, if you’re experiencing any health issues or have any other concerns regarding your pregnancy, your doctor can make specific recommendations based on those issues and concerns. 

Taking Your Prenatal Vitamins for the Right Length of Time 

Eventually, the question goes from how early should you start taking prenatal vitamins to when is it time to wean yourself off of them? After all, they’re called “prenatal” vitamins for a reason.  

While you should take prenatal vitamins throughout the course of your pregnancy, the best time to stop taking them will depend on if you breastfeed your baby. 

• If you breastfeed – Your breast milk’s nutritional content depends on what you’re consuming. By continuing to take your prenatals, you provide yourself and your little one with a sufficient amount of folic acid, iron, and calcium. Even though your baby isn’t growing inside your womb anymore, he’s still growing outside of the womb, meaning these nutrients are still important for your little one’s development.  

In place of prenatals, a multivitamin may also help supplement your little one’s needs, but check with your doctor before transitioning from your prenatals to a multivitamin.

• If you don’t breastfeed – If you don’t breastfeed, you can stop taking your prenatals after giving birth. Otherwise, you may actually ingest more nutrients than your body can handle, since non-pregnant women only need two-thirds of the nutrition of pregnant women. All those important baby-developing nutrients your prenatals were providing? Your little one can get them through the daily intake of formula. 

Before, During, and After Your Pregnancy, Find All the Answers You’re Looking For with SneakPeek 

Deciding to have a baby comes with a lot of planning and preparation, stocking up on ovulation and pregnancy tests, tracking your cycle with diligence, and changing your diet to support your fertility and implantation efforts. You learn about thing you never knew, like if alcohol can affect a pregnancy test or if early pregnancy can affect urine color. And you start taking prenatal vitamins. Fortunately, with SneakPeek, understanding when to start taking prenatal vitamins, what to look for in prenatal vitamins, and how long you should take them isn’t a mystery.  

Want to uncover even more mysteries during and after your pregnancy? SneakPeek has two innovative products that deliver. 

The SneakPeek At-Home Early Gender Blood Test uses DNA-backed science to determine whether you’re expecting a little he or a little she as early as 6 weeks into your pregnancy, with over 99% clinically-proven accuracy¹. Easy to use and privacy-protected, our test is the #1 OBGYN-recommended at-home test available, and it’s trusted by over 1 million moms. 

With science-backed, privacy-protected results you can trust, there’s no reason not to choose SneakPeek Test. We can’t wait to celebrate with you.

This post has been reviewed for accuracy by the following medical professional:

Dr. Heather Soper, Certified Nurse Midwife

Dr. Heather Soper brings over 15 years of experience in women's health and obstetrics to her role as the owner of The Genesis Resort for Birth. Complementing her clinical practice, she serves as an Assistant Professor of Nursing at James Madison University, where she educates nursing students with a focus on compassionate, patient-centered care. Her advanced training and dedication to midwifery are evident in her contribution to both academia and the wellness of expectant mothers.

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3. NIH. New insights into the vitamin D requirements during pregnancy. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5573964/
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9. NIH. Blood volume changes in normal pregnancy. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4075604/