Improved
6112 HealthChanged
3786 LivesSaved
3568 Lives0 lives impacted in the last 24 hrs Learn More
Dr. Szmuc explains which supplements a woman should take before and during pregnancy and discusses if women should avoid herbal supplements during pregnancy.
Dr. Szmuc:
The supplements that one should take in pregnancy include the prenatal vitamin. Now the prenatal vitamin gives you what you need if you are not eating an adequate diet.
In addition, the folic acid in prenatal vitamin is important especially in the first trimester where your baby’s spinal cord is developing. That’s critical. It’s been shown that the folic acid in the prenatal will decrease the incidents of these birth defects of the spinal cord.
In addition, we ask patients if they are trying to get pregnant, to use the prenatal vitamins for the folic acid supplement that it contains. In addition to the prenatal calcium supplementation is important.
A normal prenatal vitamin has about 200 milligrams of calcium whereby a pregnant lady needs about 1000 milligrams a day. You can get calcium in milk, cheese and eggs. However, many patients that I see do not drink milk or do much cheese or eggs.
So I ask them to count how many mg a day of calcium they are actually getting and if they need more the cheapest and easiest way to get it is through TUMS over-the-counter.
So if your stomach is upset also TUMS has two-fold benefit for you. In addition, there’s a lot of new interest in the omega-3 fatty acid DHA.
Recently there has been some study showing that if you take DHA in the third trimester your baby’s neural or brain development is enhanced.
There’s no specific recommendation right now to do that or not do it because DHA is found in milk, cheese and eggs also, but it doesn’t hurt if you take a supplement of DHA somewhere about 200 milligrams a day.
Herbs is an area that has not been studied in any great detail. So there’s no recommendation to take herbs or not take them because if you did take them we don’t know the adverse effect so we advise you not to take herbs in pregnancy.
About Dr. Edward D. Szmuc, M.D., F.A.C.O.G.:
Dr. Edward D. Szmuc, M.D., F.A.C.O.G., is board certified with the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and is a Fellow of American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He is Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Banner Desert Medical Center in Tempe, Arizona. Dr. Szmuc earned his M.D. from the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo and completed his residency at Boston University School of Medicine in Massachusetts.