For a healthy pregnancy, all women should take prenatal vitamins, which are specially formulated to ensure the recommended levels of vitamins and minerals needed for you and your baby's health. Prenatal vitamins, whether over-the-counter or prescription, have higher levels of folic acid, iron and calcium. Whether you take over-the-counter or prescription prenatal vitamin supplements may depend on your particular health needs as well as the personal preference of you or your physician.
Prenatal Supplements
Prenatal supplements contain a special mix of vitamins and minerals formulated to promote healthy pregnancies. They all have substantially higher doses of iron, folic acid and calcium than the usual adult multivitamin. The Mayo Clinic particularly recommends that women start taking prenatal vitamins three months before getting pregnant to ensure adequate levels of folic acid. This nutrient promotes the normal development of the neural tube, which consists of the spinal cord and brain.
Over-the-Counter
There are many choices of over-the-counter prenatal supplements. Most cost less than prescription prenatal supplements. This can be a particular advantage for women who are trying to get pregnant and want to get enough folic acid but have not yet seen their physician.
Other advantages are that over-the-counter supplements are often made as easily digestible gelatin capsules, they may contain ginger to help digestion and absorption, and they may have higher levels of Vitamins A, D, E, B1, B12, B3 and C. The main disadvantage is that they are lower in folic acid and iron than prescription prenatal supplements, and thus may not provide the dosage some women need.
Prescription
Some women may benefit more by taking prescription prenatal vitamins. Prescription prenatal vitamins, which may take the forms of multivitamins or single nutrient supplements, may contain larger doses of those nutrients compared to over-the-counter vitamins. For example, one can get 1000 micrograms of folic acid in a prescription supplement compared to 400 micrograms in over-the-counter supplements. Women with a history of having a child with a neural tube defect or women who have iron deficiency anemia, for example, may respectively need particularly high levels of folic acid or iron, which are more easily available through prescriptions.
Some have also suggested that because they are prescription, they may have been subjected to a higher level of testing to get FDA approval. Depending on your health insurance, you may have coverage for prescription prenatal supplements. Prescription prenatal vitamins often do not contain agents that help promote their digestion, and thus, some women experience nausea after taking them.
Considerations
More important than deciding whether to take over-the-counter or prescription prenatal supplements is to begin taking a prenatal supplement of some sort before pregnancy. After that, it is likely that for most women, over-the-counter varieties of prenatal multivitamins will suffice. Physicians may recommend that some women take over-the-counter single nutrient supplements such as folic acid, iron or calcium in addition to them.
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