Prenatal vitamins contain vitamins and minerals that are important not only to your health, but also critically important to the health of your developing baby. You ideally start prenatal vitamins three months prior to becoming pregnant, as a folic acid supplement helps to prevent birth defects of the spinal column and brain, which form very early in your pregnancy, often before you know you're pregnant. For some women, however, the pill is too big to swallow. In this case, check with your obstetrician about the best option for your pregnancy.
Iron
Prenatal vitamins are most often difficult to swallow due to the large amount of iron supplementation provided. If the size is too much, check with your obstetrician about changing to a supplement with less iron. If you're not anemic, 30 mg of extra iron per day is all you need.
Modifying the Pill
If you need the full iron supplementation provided by your pill, ask your obstetrician about splitting the pill in half. This may make it easier to swallow and minimize any potential nausea. In addition, you may be able to take one-half at night and one-half in the morning, which can also minimize any swallowing problems if you simply can't take two pill pieces in a row.
Modifying the Supplement
If the pill remains too large, ask your obstetrician about other methods of modifying your supplement. Chewable tablets make it much easier to swallow these necessary vitamins and minerals. In addition, liquid supplementation, provided in drops that you add to a liquid or take directly, removes the need to swallow any large pills.
Changing the Approach
If prenatal vitamins are simply too large in any form and your doctor does not prescribe chewables or liquids, ask about breaking the supplementation down into its component parts. Take a calcium supplement, iron supplement and folic acid supplement separately. Each of these pills us smaller, especially if the iron supplement is multiple pills that add up to the supplementation your obstetrician prescribes.
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