Vitamins for Pregnancy
June 14th, 2009You can’t drink this. You can’t drink that. Women are being put on trial for engaging in unhealthy behaviors during pregnancy. Of course, things like doing drugs or drinking alcohol are indeed very dangerous to your baby. After all, everything a pregnant woman eats, drinks, and breathes will reach her fetus through the placenta.
Now, the question is: Are vitamins included? What are the vitamins recommended for pregnant women? What will be the effects? Here’s the real truth about the vitamins pregnant women can and can’t get away right now.
Vitamins Essential for Moms-To-Be
1. Vitamin C
This vitamin is important in the manufacturing of your baby’s blood vessels, bones, and the whole skeletal system. Vitamin C helps produce collagen, a protein responsible for producing your baby’s skeletal foundation. Vitamin C is also known as skin food because it feeds your skin as well as your baby’s skin with the right nutrients to help build healthy skin. As an antioxidant, it can also help you and your baby fight free radicals or delay the oxidation process.
Since your body can’t produce vitamin C, unlike most animals, and it can’t store it either, it is important that you get your daily supply of vitamins from supplements and foods rich in vitamin C, such as citrus foods, vegetables, and fruits.
2. Foliate
Foliate, a B vitamin, is another nutrient necessary for the production of healthy red blood cells. And not everybody gets enough.
Foliate is found primarily in fresh fruits and vegetables, and people who eat a lot of canned or pre-packaged foods can become deficient. Pregnant women who live alone and don’t want to cook for one are especially at risk for anemia caused by foliate deficiency.
Health experts suggest that a few servings of fresh fruits and vegetables every day are the best bet for prevention. If you can’t bear Brussels sprouts, consider taking a daily nutritional supplement with 400 micrograms, the Daily Value of folic acid (the supplemental form of foliate).
3. Vitamin A
A daily intake of vitamin A between 10,000 and 15,000 IU (international units) may also provide healthy bones, skin, and eyes to your baby as well as healthy cells needed to build your baby’s internal organs.
However, pregnant women should speak with their doctors before supplementing their diet with vitamin A. Studies show that excessive intake of vitamin A can bring about birth defects, such as ear and eye abnormalities, microcephaly or small head, cleft lip and palate, hydrocephaly or enlargement of the fluid-filled paces in the brain, mental retardation, or heart defects.
Statistics show that pregnant women who consume more than 10,000 IU of vitamin A can lead to birth defects in 1 of every 57 infants. Also, excessive intake of vitamin A during pregnancy can cause higher risks of miscarriage.
4. Vitamin D
When researchers in a certain study measured levels of vitamin D in pregnant women, they saw that the more vitamin D in the blood, the better the insulin was at delivering glucose to the muscles. So vitamin D is an important nutrient for many other reasons as well, such as helping produce healthy teeth, tissue, and bones for your baby and may help your body derail diabetes. Studies show that diabetes in pregnant women can be very risky and may even cause birth defects or morbidity.
Though vitamin D is produced when your skin is exposed to sunlight, a more reliable year-round source is milk. Four 8-ounce glasses of fat-free milk everyday can get you to the Daily Value of 400 IU. Alternatively, you can supplement your diet with 400 IU of vitamin D.
5. Vitamin B12
Vitamin B12 facilitates the formation of hemoglobin, the red blood cell component that carries oxygen through the bloodstream. During pregnancy, more hemoglobin is required to supply your baby with oxygen. And the fetus also uses this vitamin to build its own blood supply.
Your body needs vitamin B12 to create red blood cells. This vitamin is found in chicken, red meat, dairy products, eggs, and fish, but not in plant foods. Most people get plenty, but super-strict vegetarians who don’t eat any non-vegetable foods are at risk for a deficiency of vitamin B12 and anemia. The solution is to take a daily nutritional supplement that contains at least double the Daily Value of B12 (six micrograms).
Keep in mind that baby’s health depends on the mothers way of getting the proper amount of vitamins, so pregnant women can’t afford to skimp. Hence, pregnant women should make sure that they get enough of the nutrients every day.
The best home pregnancy test is the one that gives the result instantly. So the best one would be to ask your pharmacist to give you a pregnancy test kit which cost you less than a dollar. Clear instructions are given on the kit, on how to do the tests. This test is as accurate as done in the doctor’s clinic which takes a little more time. Thus for a woman who is apprehensive, this test will clear all doubts.