Is It Really Bad If You Forget to Take Your Prenatal Vitamins?

This late in the pregnancy all of the major developments are already done (brain, heart, etc) and your baby is just fattening up. At this point I'd say the most important one to remember is iron. Taking iron supplements kept me from needing a blood transfusion after baby #2.

If you had any kind of major problem, your doctor probably would have brought it up with you already. During pregnancy your baby takes all the nutrients he/she needs from YOUR body. So, if you weren't getting enough calcium in your diet, your body would take some from your bones to make sure the baby had enough. Just keep taking the vitamins whenever you remember, and keep taking them after you deliver to make up for anything you lost.

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Here's the deal...what is done is done. At this point it doesn't really matter. So...just try to be peaceful in your mind and relax...have good thoughts and your baby will be fine.

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Prenatals made me even sicker than I already was. I was sick the entire time, but it was even worse when I did take them. So my doctor told me just to take Flinstones. LOVE THEM!

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Everytime I took them they made me throw up. So very rarely did I keep one down. I have a very healthy 4 year old.....I think as long as you take care of yourself and eat right you'll be just fine :) Congrats!!!

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Most vitamins end up peed into the toilet. The BEST place to get your vitamins and minerals are from food sources.

Most people cannot afford to do so, and even those who can, don't often understand/eat the right things. Hence prenatals are more like a safteynet or bandaid. Nutritional deficiency birth defects are not caused by not taking prenatals, they're cause by nutritional deficiencies. For tens of thousands of years people had babies without prenatals. In an ideal world, we'd all get our nutritional need met by foods... but that just doesn't happen.

I *couldn't* take prenatals... they made me very very ill. (Migraines, vomitting, swelling, insomnia... oh joy.) My diet was good, and I supplemented with Flintstone chewables which didn't make me ill. ((In fact, a LOT of mums have bad reactions to the megadoses of prenatal vitamins, and even normal adult vitamins whilst pregnant. Their OB's usually have them chew childrens vitamins instead.)

Nutritional deficiency birth defects are very rare... what is very common, however, is for nutritional deficiencies to show up in MOM. The placenta/fetus *yanks* what it needs from your body (it gets first dibs)... so missing certain nutrients causes organ and bone damage in MOM first. Only when your body has nothing left, does baby go without. The vitamins are far more for mom's benefit than for the baby's.

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Take them as often as you remember. Folic acid is very important for brain development, which continues throughout fetal development (and until age 25). I kept the bottle in the kitchen next to the blender because every morning before work my breakfast was a smoothie. I would make my smoothie and take it with the smoothie. Worked for me!

Home-made smoothies were not only healthy, but a huge morning craving for me. I used skim milk and frozen fruit in tasty combonations. Strawberry banana. Raspberry banana. Mango pineapple. Blueberry banana. Strawberry blueberry. Sometimes I added a little honey. I even did frozen bananas and peanut butter.....yum! I also usually added flax seed and wheat germ to make them even better for me (and added a nutty flavor). I am making myself want one now!

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I was always told the baby will get what it needs from the mother, and vitamins are to replenish the mother. I was so sick with my pregnancies, I hardly ate anything except coke and crackers the first 4 months, but I gave birth to healthy babies. Put your vitamins IN SIGHT where you can't miss seeing them, but don't stress too much if you skip them once in a while. The point is for YOU to stay healthy!

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Well...I will admit I would forget ALL the time. I mean it'd be days. :(
I have two healthy kids.
And yes, eating healthy is absolutely the best. You know we are actually supposed to get all the vitamins and minerals we need from our food but we just eat so poorly (in general) these days we have to supplement.

It sounds like your baby will be fine. :)
Congrats Mama! Happy Birthing!

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The most important time during a pregnancy to take your vitamins is during the first trimester. This is because there is a direct correlation between Spina Bifida and one of the components of what is in a prenatal vitamin.

With that said, you can go on and have a perfectly healthy baby. With my third child, I didn't know I was pregnant until 16 1/2 weeks. She is a healthy and active 17 month old.

Congratulations, take them when you remember but don't stress out.

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As long as you are eating well and taking good care of yourself, everything should be fine.
I don't think your baby will have a defect of some type because you didn't take a vitamin every day.
I take medication for a health problem and you'd think it would be the first thing I think of in the morning. But, it isn't. I keep my medicine in the cabinet next to my tooth brush. That way, I can't forget it.

I wouldn't worry at this point. I'm sure you're baby will be fine.

Be sure to let us know when your baby arrives!

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I probably only took mine a 1/3 of my pregnancy. I tried but just could not swallow pills at about 5 mths i found the gummy prenatal at target that were so good i set them next to my coffeemaker so i remembered to take em every morning. I had a perfect healthly baby boy. Just put them next to ur toothbrush r by ur car keys so u will rememeber :) Congrats of the baby

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Actually it can be really good to miss them. They have found a folic Acid link to asthma.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/nov/04/asthma-foli...

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/170018.php

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I don't know what other people wrote, but this is my experience. I asked my doctor about this because I went about a month in my pregnancy where I actually didn't take them (it was in my third trimester). She said that usually the baby finds a way to get the nutrients and will use up what you have first. The reason for the prenatal vitamins is so that there is enough for you AND baby. If you don't take them then you run the risk that your own body doesn't have enough nutrients to function properly and you might get symptoms of a typical vitamin deficiency, cause really the baby is taking the little that you have. I actually got this and once I started taking them regularly and stopped forgetting, I was fine. But, nothing ever looked wrong with the baby, it was just me. The baby was getting everything it needed.

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Both my OB and my perinatologist told me that its almost impossible to not get enough folic acid in your food if you live in the US. Lots of food is fortified with it: breads, cereal, etc. So don't worry.

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If you are eating well you should be fine. And actually, even if you are not eating great you and the baby are probably fine. I didn't take my prenatals when I was prego with my first son. Maybe a total of 30 pills over the 9 months. Not that I would recommend it, but I had a very healthy lovely son. You should be fine mama! Good luck
L.

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I forgot a lot too... I still forget a lot. lol. If you are eating healthy, you shouldn't really have much of an issue. One thing that did help me was to set an alarm on my phone to remind me, and I enlisted Hubby's help in making sure I took them while I was prego. (I am supposed to still take them while breastfeeding, but... I forget. lol)

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I only took prenatal vitamins from weeks 6 - 10. They made me horribly sick (on top of already having morning sickness), and my dr advised me to stop. What was the point if I couldn't keep it down? So instead, he told me to take flinstone chewables (still had to choke those down) and had a really good diet (especially foods high in folic acid).
I stayed sick almost the whole pregnancy, but I forced myself to eat (even if I did throw it up) and now I have a healthy <almost> 2 year old.
Hope this helps!

Just remember as often as you can :) I was HORRIBLE at remembering too! (Still am horrible at remembering any type of vitamins, and now I do good to remember a prescription I'm supposed to take daily... lol)

At one point during my pregnancy just taking the vitamin made it almost immediately come back up... so it didn't always work even if I did take it! And my baby girl is fine :) (well, not a baby anymore... about to be 5 years old!)

I forgot them a bit.. I suck at taking medicine. My daughter is 2 and really healthy most of the time. I just took good care of myself. Have you tried setting a reminder beep to go off at a certain time on your phone? I go to calendar on my phone, set a schedule type (youd label it prenatal vitamins NOW :P), and set a reminder alarm so it will physically make noise. Helps me to remember things :D I don't think your baby will have a defect but I think you should take them when you remember... they just help fill holes in vitamins you may not be getting.

nah, just do the best you can. I used to try and eat some fish like tilapia or salmon or even catfish a couple times a week, it's yummy, healthy and gives you some of that good ol' DHA. Just try to remember and eat as well as you can, but however it all goes down, your little one will do great!

I almost never kept a prenatal down. I threw up almost everything the entire pregnancy. My son was great! The thing to remember, is the prenatal are for your body. Your baby will suck whatever they need out of your body, leaving you lacking nutrients and minerals. The prenatal helps with that.

I was unable to take prenatal vitamins after the first week or so of knowing I was pregnant. I had hyperemesis gravidarum with each pregnancy. I simply just vomited uncontrollably, for a long time. I couldn't take the vitamins, they made it so much worse and my ob/gyn wanted to focus more on keeping my body as hydrated as possible. SO, you should be fine. My poor kids didn't get prenantals... And, my diet for baby number 2 consisted of IV fluids, and crackers. No IV vitamins because they would get me puking too. It sucked.

But! Every single kiddo was just fine all through the pregnancies and birth. Normal weights, no problems at all!

I believe the most important time to take your prenatal vitamins is actually before you even know you are pregnant... Before you even miss your period. If I remember correctly it is partially to ensure you have enough folic acid to help prevent neural tube defects.

It's too late now after the first 4 months of pregnancy - what you need to do is think of the next 5 months. The biggest reason to take pre-natal vitamins at the beginning of your pregnancy is to prevent neural tube defects like spina bifida. But the vitamins are so important all the way through the pregnancy.

The baby will take everything you've got as far as nutrients are concerned, so the vitamins will help you be more healthy as you "give" to your child.

All my best,
D.

I stopped taking them very early on in my pregnancy with my first. They made me violently ill, and I"m not just talking the prototypical morning sickness throwing them up...we're talking swelling, joint pains, migraines, could not function sickness. As soon as I stopped taking them I felt better and stayed that way the rest of my pregnancy.
I didn't take a single solitary one with my second or third pregnancies. My midwife knew I didn't take any. Best I felt!
All 3 of my children are beautiful, healthy and perfect.
I made sure to eat right so baby and I got what we needed.