2023-05-25 10:04:01
You can certainly use extra vitamins during your pregnancy, because: everything for a healthy baby. But what does your body need right now and what can you better leave? Eight facts and fables.
The more vitamins you take in as a pregnant woman, the better
Fable. When you are pregnant, you have a higher than normal vitamin requirement. Vitamins are important for the proper development of the baby and the placenta. But that does not mean that you should try to get as many vitamins as possible during your pregnancy. When it comes to vitamin A, for example, you have to be careful. You do need a little vitamin A as a pregnant woman. It is important for the development of the eyes, spinal cord and lung maturation of the baby.
You get the recommended daily dose for pregnant women, 750 micrograms, from your daily diet if you eat a healthy and varied diet. But an excess of vitamin A increases the risk of birth defects in the baby, such as eye or heart problems. Pregnant women should therefore not consume more than 3000 micrograms of vitamin A per day. Because vitamin A is stored in the liver of humans and animals, liver products contain a lot of vitamin A. With one sandwich topped with liver sausage or pâté you get about 800 to 1200 micrograms of vitamin A. That is why the advice is not to eat liver during your pregnancy. Liver products, such as spreadable liver sausage on bread, can be taken no more than once a week.
Read more: Multivitamin during pregnancy: what do you need?
Sufficient vitamin C during pregnancy helps prevent anemia
Fact. Vitamin C is also important when you are pregnant. You don’t need to take a supplement for this if you eat a healthy diet. Nevertheless, it is advisable to pay attention during your pregnancy that you get enough of it. Vitamin C stimulates iron absorption. It can prevent an iron deficiency or even anemia. You need enough iron, especially if you are pregnant. Because you have about fifty percent more blood during your pregnancy, anemia is more likely to occur.
Animal food products, such as meat and meat products, contain a lot of iron. Your body absorbs iron more easily from this than from vegetable sources, such as grain products. It is therefore important to eat or drink something with vitamin C, such as fruit or vegetables, with every meal when you are pregnant. But beware: do not drink tea, coffee or milk with meals. These drinks actually inhibit iron absorption.
You do not need extra vitamins after giving birth
Fact. After giving birth, you will receive all the necessary nutrients with a healthy and varied diet. That is why if you eat enough, healthy and varied according to the Wheel of Five, you do not have to worry about a shortage of vitamins, minerals or fatty acids. Even if you are breastfeeding, you do not need to take extra vitamins. However, this may change in the future. The Health Council is working on an advisory report on vitamin D during breastfeeding. This may be recommended for breastfeeding women in due course.
If you are pregnant, you need a (multi)vitamin supplement
Fable. The higher need for certain nutrients for pregnant women does not immediately mean that you have to take them extra through certain supplements. Many nutrients are absorbed more efficiently during pregnancy. When you eat according to the Wheel of Five of the Netherlands Nutrition Center, you can rest assured that you are getting enough of most nutrients. A multivitamin supplement is then not necessary.
However, it is very important that you take a folic acid supplement at the start of pregnancy. Folic acid reduces the risk of spina bifida and cleft lip and palate in the child. Because it takes a while for your body to absorb the folic acid, the advice is to start four weeks before you want to start getting pregnant. Continue it until you are ten weeks pregnant. A vitamin D supplement is also recommended throughout pregnancy. Vitamin D aids in the baby’s bone building and appears to lower your baby’s risks of gestational diabetes, low birth weight and asthma-like symptoms.
If you are very nauseous, a (multi)vitamin supplement is a good idea
Fact. Do you suffer from morning sickness and are you afraid that you are not getting enough nutrients? If you usually eat healthy, you don’t have to worry that you have shortages due to morning sickness. Your body stores fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. If you are very nauseous, but you have always eaten a healthy diet, then you do not suddenly have a shortage. Especially if the nausea lasts for a short period of time.
If you are sick for almost the entire pregnancy, it may be wise to take a multivitamin pill. Then always choose one that is specially intended for pregnant women, advises the Nutrition Center. If you take a vitamin supplement for pregnant women, make sure that you do not also take extra vitamin D and folic acid, because these are already included.
If you eat enough spinach, you don’t need to take a folic acid supplement
Fable. The folic acid pills you should take when you are pregnant contain the synthetic form of vitamin B11. Vitamin B11 is also in our diet. Spinach, broccoli and Brussels sprouts are full of them. Just like whole grain products such as bread. Yet it makes no sense to eat a lot of this to get the amount of extra vitamin B11 required for pregnant women (and women who want to become pregnant). Food contains the natural variant of vitamin B11, called folate. And our bodies can’t absorb folate very well. That goes much better with the synthetic variant of the vitamin, or folic acid.
Insufficient vitamin D seems to increase the risk of premature birth
Fact. Vitamin D is important for the development of your baby’s skeleton, but not only that. If you have a vitamin D deficiency as a pregnant woman, this seems to increase the chance that your baby will be born prematurely. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh that pregnant women with low vitamin D levels in the blood gave birth one and a half times more often before 37 weeks of pregnancy than women with high vitamin D levels. Whether the vitamin D deficiency was the cause of the premature births, the Americans are not sure. Vitamin D may protect the placenta against a bacterial infection that can induce premature birth.
Read more: The placenta, what is its function?
A vitamin D pill is not necessary if you are pregnant enough to go outside
Fable. We get vitamin D through our diet, among other things. It is a lot in oily fish, butter, eggs and meat. But our body can also produce it from sunlight. Exposure to sunlight stimulates the skin to produce vitamin D. About 15 percent of western women in the Netherlands have a vitamin D deficiency.
This is about 75 percent among non-Western women. This is partly due to the fact that dark skin is less efficient at producing vitamin D. Moreover, non-Western women often cover more of their body, so that the sun shines less on the skin surface. Nevertheless, it is wise for all pregnant women to take a vitamin D pill during the entire pregnancy. Then you know for sure that you don’t have a shortage.
Also see: Vitamin K and D: what does your baby need (extra) and why?
This article was written with the cooperation of Elske Brouwer-Brolsma, food scientist at Wageningen University, and Patricia Schutte of the Netherlands Nutrition Centre.
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