What Do Prenatal Vitamins Do?

Prenatal vitamins are designed to give you and your baby critical nutrient support for a healthy pregnancy. Whether you’re trying to conceive or are pregnant, your body has extra nutrient demands that are difficult to meet with a whole food balanced diet alone.

What do prenatal vitamins do?

Prenatal vitamins give you the vitamins and minerals you need before, during, and after pregnancy. (1, 2)

Here is how prenatal vitamins support you and your baby when trying to conceive and during pregnancy:

Fertility health support

Research shows that deficiencies in vitamins A, B6, D, E, and B12, iron, and folate may make it difficult to reach your fertility goals. (3) Supplementation for these key nutrients will support your body as you pursue them.

If you are undergoing fertility treatment, research shows that supplementation with methylfolate and B12 may support assisted reproductive technology. (4)

Placenta development

During pregnancy, the placenta provides oxygen and nutrients to your baby, provides immune health support, removes waste and carbon dioxide, and produces hormones. (5)

Research shows that prenatal vitamin ingredients including iron, probiotics, and vitamin D, provide beneficial support for placenta development. (6, 7, 8)

Fetal development

By the sixth week of your pregnancy, your baby’s neural tube closes. Your baby’s brain, spinal cord, and skull develop from the neural tube. (2, 9)

A prenatal vitamin that includes methylfolate is essential to supporting neural tube development and neurological health including memory, visual, and language skills. (1, 2)

Healthy iron stores

Pregnant women, babies, and infants are at risk of iron deficiency. During pregnancy, your body needs extra iron to support fetal and placenta development and to increase your red blood cell volume. Unfortunately, many women are deficient in iron. (10) Prenatal vitamins with iron can help reduce the risk of iron deficiency during pregnancy.

Vitamin D supplementation

Vitamin D is an essential micronutrient for women trying to conceive and for pregnancy support. When you’re trying to conceive, vitamin D helps regulate your sex hormones. A prenatal vitamin should include vitamin D. Research shows that it may support better birth outcomes for women receiving fertility treatments and it might help reduce miscarriage risk during the first trimester. (11, 12, 13)

Daily nutritional support

It’s not always easy to eat a balanced whole-foods diet to give your body all of the extra nutrients it needs before,  during, and after pregnancy. A prenatal vitamin can help you fill nutritional gaps and give you the extra support you and your baby need for better overall health.

Essential prenatal vitamin ingredients

It’s important your prenatal vitamin contains these essential ingredients:

1. Folate

Folate is the generic term for vitamin B9. Folate is a critical nutrient for methylation, a vital process that occurs in every cell of your body.

Folic acid, methylfolate, folinic acid, and food folate are all forms of folate. However, these subtypes of folate are not the same.

Folic acid is the form commonly found in multivitamins because it is cheaper and more stable. But people with the MTHFR gene variation (up to 60% of people) metabolize folic acid inefficiently or not at all.

Because of this we only use methylfolate in our formulas. Methylfolate is the active form of folate found in our bodies. Your body can convert and use methylfolate immediately. 

2.   Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 is critical to your baby’s development and your health. (14, 15, 16, 17) Vitamin B12:

3.   Vitamin B6

Vitamin B6 is another essential micronutrient in prenatal vitamins that: (18, 19, 20, 21)

4. Choline

Choline has several critical roles during pregnancy, including tissue expansion, brain development, and neurotransmission. Sufficient intake of choline is critical for proper brain function and neurodevelopment. (22, 23)

Choline is a bulky ingredient, making it difficult to include it in a once-day prenatal vitamin. This is why we offer our Mama Bird AM/PM Prenatal Multi+ a twice-daily prenatal vitamin with the extra choline you need. We also have Mama Bird Mineral Complex which is perfect to pair with any prenatal vitamin.

5. Iron

Iron is used to make hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen to organs and tissues, and myoglobin, a protein that provides oxygen to muscles. This essential nutrient is critical to growth, development, and hormone production. (24)

During pregnancy, your body needs extra blood volume to deliver nutrients and oxygen to your baby. Researchers report women who consumed iron supplements had a significantly lower risk of ovulatory infertility compared to women who did not use iron supplements. Experts also believe iron deficiency is related to babies being born prematurely or undersized. (25)

6. Vitamin D

Vitamin D deficiency is a global health crisis, with an estimated 50% of the population deficient in this micronutrient. Consuming vitamin D is essential for women trying to conceive or who are pregnant. (26)

Vitamin D has many roles including helping with calcium absorption, providing immune support, and supporting communication between your brain and body. (27)

7. Probiotics

Probiotics are good bacteria that have a diverse role in your whole-body health before, during, and after pregnancy. (28, 29, 30, 31) Probiotics:

8. Vitamin A

Vitamin A is categorized into two groups: retinoids and carotenoids. We include both forms in our prenatal vitamins to help support those who have trouble converting provitamin A compounds (beta-carotene) into the active retinyl/retinol forms. Both types of vitamin A: (32, 33, 34)

9.  Zinc

Zinc has an important role in hormone production and fertility, affecting estrogen and progesterone production. This trace mineral is active within all bodily tissues: