07. Ask Sister Mama: When should I start taking a prenatal?
On building nutritional stores and habits.
I am writing to you as I crawl out of the immune-building trenches of parenthood. We celebrated baby T’s first birthday (how?!) and finished the birthday weekend with a lovely case of hand, foot, and mouth disease. Thanks to the fantastic mama (love you, Natalie!) who sent over pro-healing advice: naked time for the blisters to heal and smoothie popsicles to soothe his mouth. Bonus: nothing like a blistery rash from hell to inspire a good cleaning frenzy; what a way to greet spring!
Outside of the trenches, I hosted my first community event, “Nourishing Fertility,” at a local wellness center. I walked through what I wish I had known going through preconception, pregnancy, and birth from a nutritional therapy perspective. It was absolutely nerve-wracking, but it was also precisely why I started Sister Mama in the first place: to create a space to share knowledge, build community, and, most importantly, ask questions.
During the Q&A, attendees asked such great questions, which inspired this series, Ask Sister Mama, where I want to dig into some of the questions that came up. If you attended the event, thank you for your incredible warmth and presence. If you missed it, I am offering a remote session at the beginning of May, and I hope to see you there!
Q: When should I start taking a prenatal?
A: Prenatals are such a fun, controversial topic in the fertility wellness space; then again, what topic isn’t? Please note that this question asked “when” rather than why, which ones, or what they should do. I hope to cover all of these in a separate series, Prenatals: Vitamin A to Zinc.
When considering when to start a prenatal, most practitioners recommend beginning about three months before starting to try to conceive. This three-month grace period allows your body time to address nutritional deficiencies and build a strong foundation for your pregnancy.
Women are not screened for nutritional deficiencies unless serious health issues indicate a potential underlying deficiency. However, maybe this is for the best because it could be another data point to obsess over? In general, the data suggests that “women of child-bearing age” are especially at risk for micronutrient deficiencies.1 With that in mind, studies tracking the impact of supplements in addressing these nutrient gaps take between a few weeks or months to get lab levels back to “normal.”2 So it seems three months is a medical estimate at the optimal time for your body to get its micronutrient stores up and ready for the nutritional needs marathon, which is pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.
Medical estimates aside, I’m thinking of supplementation logistics. Often, this may be the first time you’re taking supplements, and it’s a habit that’s not always easy to start. This three-month period is a great time to find your groove. Do you need to set an alarm to remember to take your prenatal? The dosage should be multiple pills, and it’s best to break that up over the day. Half the dosage should be in the morning after breakfast (I find any vitamin on an empty morning stomach makes me nauseous), and the other half should be at lunch or later. Remember, your prenatal should have all active B vitamins; this means they can be energizing, so try not to take them in the evening.
When did you start taking prenatals, and what helped you remember to take them? Did you feel a difference taking them?
Rai, Deshanie et al. “Nutritional Status as Assessed by Nutrient Intakes and Biomarkers among Women of Childbearing Age – Is the Burden of Nutrient Inadequacies Growing in America?” Public Health Nutrition 18.9 (2015): 1658–1669. Web.
Belay, Ezra et al. “Hematological responses to iron-folate supplementation and its determinants in pregnant women attending antenatal cares in Mekelle City, Ethiopia.” PloS one vol. 13,10 e0204791. 1 Oct. 2018, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0204791