One of the most important steps you can take during pregnancy to ensure you have a healthy baby is also one of the simplest: popping a prenatal vitamin every day. While a prenatal vitamin can't replace a healthy diet full of the best foods for pregnancy, a supplement helps you fill in any gaps, says Nicole Rankins, M.D., an OB/GYN and site director of the OB Hospitalist Group in Norfolk, Virginia. After all, it's tough to meet the nutrient demands of pregnancy through food alone — especially when you're dealing with food aversions or morning sickness.
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And no, a standard multivitamin won't do the trick. Prenatal vitamins are specially formulated for pregnancy. "If comparing them side by side, you would notice higher amounts of many nutrients in a prenatal vitamin compared to the standard multivitamin for women," says Olivia Small, R.D.N., a prenatal dietitian and certified lactation counselor at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. For instance, prenatal vitamins contain higher levels of iron and folic acid than a standard multivitamin.
First and foremost, your prenatal vitamin needs to provide the right nutrients (and the right amount of them) to support your body throughout your pregnancy. This is why all the prenatal vitamins on this list meet the prenatal nutrition guidelines from the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). But to learn about the benefits each of these nutrients provide to pregnant women, we spoke to Small and Dr. Rankins, as well as Jill Purdie, M.D., medical director and OB/GYN at Northside Women's Specialists and Christine Greves, M.D., a board-certified OB/GYN at the Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies in Orlando. (You can learn more about the recommended ingredients and their benefits below.)
Additionally, because prenatal vitamins are supplements and not well regulated, Small suggests taking vitamins that are certified by the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) and United States Pharmacopeia (USP), which ensures they were tested for quality and safety. All of our recommendations for prenatal vitamins have an independent certification to back up their claims.
Of course, if a prenatal vitamin tastes bad or causes an upset stomach, you may be less likely to take it. And what good would that do? To get an idea of which prenatal vitamins moms can actually tolerate, we spoke to seven mothers on the What to Expect staff, who have altogether tested all of these prenatal vitamins during their combined 13 pregnancies. We also utilized the results and feedback of the 2023 Mom Must-Have Awards, in which more than 375 moms from our user community voted on the prenatal vitamin they’d recommend most. In both instances, we considered their feedback on taste, smell, ease of swallowing and side effects, eliminating any prenatal vitamins that received poor reviews.
frequently asked questions
Do I need omega-3 if I take other vitamins?
Good question! Omega-3 fats, like vitamins, are nutritional compounds that our bodies require every day, but we can’t make them ourselves. We have to obtain them from either food or supplements. They are a separate category of nutrition from vitamins, minerals, or herbs. The general recommendation is that anyone eating less than 3 ounces of wild-caught fatty fish (like salmon, mackerel, or anchovies) three times per week might need to add a daily omega-3 supplement.
Why are these milligram amounts lower than fish oil? Is this enough?
This is a common question! Because nearly all of the clinical research on omega-3s has used fish oil, the recommended daily amounts are based on how much fish oil is needed to create benefits. Since iwi’s algae omega-3 is far more bioavailable than fish or krill oil, our milligram amounts don’t need to be as high for you to achieve your health goals!
How does this product contain cholesterol? I thought only animal products contain cholesterol.
For more custom DHA softgel capsule information, please contact us. We will provide professional answers.
Many of us thought the same thing! When we think of plants, we think of the green guys that grow on the ground with roots, stems, and leaves--and none of them make cholesterol, it’s true. When you get into the tiny plants like microalgae, it turns out that they can make a tiny bit of good cholesterol. Algae are fascinating! The good news is that iwi’s proprietary Almega PL* product has been clinically tested and shown to support healthy cholesterol levels in the human body.
Can I take this formula if I’m taking other iwi products, like the Multi, Brain, or Joint?
Yes! iwi formulas are made to be stacked. Create the custom routine that helps you meet your health goals faster by layering the nutrition in iwi’s focused formulas.
Can’t I just eat fish to get my omega-3s?
Fish are certainly the most famous source of omega-3 EPA and DHA, but guess what? Fish don’t make it themselves--they borrow it from algae! In addition to being able to “cut out the middle fish,” many consumers are making conscious choices about what they eat, whether it’s from an environmental standpoint, or concern over microplastics, mercury, and lead in ocean fish. In addition, since fish obtain their EPA and DHA omega-3 from algae, farmed fish does not contain much of these essential fats. Be sure that your brain, heart, eyes, and joints get what they need by adding iwi to your supplement routine.
I already take chlorella and spirulina. Don’t they give me the same nutrition as iwi?
We love to see it--another algae super-fan! Chlorella and spirulina are wonderful sources of nutrition. However, they do not contain DHA or EPA, which is what makes iwi so unique and valuable as a source of algae-based nutrition.
If you want to learn more, please visit our website custom L-Carnitine Gummy.