While most pregnant women take prenatal vitamins, a few would prefer not to, either because they're quite expensive or because they can cause uncomfortable gastrointestinal side effects. Flintstones vitamins aren't a substitute for prenatal vitamins, but under certain circumstances, you may be able to incorporate them into your pregnancy nutrition regimen.
Flintstones Vitamins
Flintstones vitamins are vitamin and mineral supplements formulated for children. They have many of the same nutrients that you'd find in a regular daily multivitamin supplement or in a prenatal vitamin, though in many cases they contain smaller quantities of nutrients. For instance, many adult multivitamins have 800 to 1,000 IU of vitamin D, while Flintstones vitamins have only 400 IU. Adults may need to be aware that they're getting less of certain nutrients when they use Flintstones vitamins than they'd get from adult supplements.
Prenatal Vitamins
Prenatal vitamins are similar to adult multivitamin pills, but have particularly large quantities of the vitamins and minerals that are most critical to maintenance of a healthy pregnancy. In particular, prenatals have more iron and more folic acid than you'd find in a regular supplement, and have much more of these two nutrients than you'd find in Flintstones vitamins. Typically, prenatal vitamins contain 800 to 1,000 mcg of folic acid, as compared to 400 mcg in Flintstones, and have 27 mg of iron, as compared to 18 mg in Flintstones.
Concerns
The reason Flintstones vitamins don't substitute completely for prenatals has to do mostly with the quantities of iron and folic acid. When you're pregnant, you need large quantities of folic acid to assist in embryonic development of the neural tube, which becomes the brain and spinal cord. You also need large amounts of iron to help build up increased blood volume.
Options
If you don't want to use prenatal vitamins because of the expense, your obstetrician might be amenable to you using Flintstones vitamins plus additional folic acid and iron. Further, some women have difficulty with prenatals because the large amount of iron causes stomach upset and constipation. Provided your obstetrician monitors your blood iron levels, you may be able to take Flintstones vitamins plus a folic acid supplement to avoid the large quantities of iron in prenatals.
References
- FlintstonesVitamins.com
- "You: Having A Baby"; Michael Roizen, M.D., and Mehmet Oz, M.D.; 2009
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