Hi Vanessa,
Ask you doctor for samples of different vitamins and try them out to see which works best for you. You can then get a perscription for the one that you like.
Good luck!
I just recently started taking Nature Made. I purchased them at Target...good luck...
Hi, I had a horrible time with my prenatals, probably caused some of my nausea and I had bad after taste and constant burps of old beans. YUK! Well, a friend of mine told me that her OB suggested Flinstones Complete. When I finally told my OB about the affects of the vitamins he also suggested Flinstones Complete. Take two daily. What a difference! Check with your OB first, but those are a good alternative.
Prefera OB are the smallest and have no aftertaste
I love Shaklee's Vita Lea
Hi Vanessa.
Trader Joes has great prenatal vitamins. They aren't too big and don't have that really gross smell. They contain no wheat, gluten, artificial color/flavor, sugar, lactose, or allergic yeasts, nor any added preservatives. Also, they have a nice price point at around $11 a bottle.
:)
My doctor said Target brand prenatal vitamins were just as good as any others. They are small and tastless. You should also tell your DR you're trying to conceive. He/she might hand over some prescription samples.
A tip that worked for me on prenatal vitamins was to take them at night right before I went to bed. That way I wasn't burping them up all day like I would when I took them in the morning. Hope that helps. :)
Hi Vanessa. I totally relate! I, too, have a problem with taking "horse pills." I found, in comparison to the other prenatals I had tried, the Walgreen's brand ($17.99 for 240) was smaller in size. Still not as small as I'd like it, but it was an improvement! The vitamin amounts are the same as brand names and getting the folic acid is really the most important thing if you eat a half-way decent diet. As for the taste of these vitamins, they are coated so they have no taste unless you bite into them. If I can achieve the swallow fairly quickly, the coating seems to last long enough. But, I can only swallow them about half the time and I often end up chewing them. This one has a tart taste (probably from the ascorbic acid)that I don't find as noxious as other vitamins, so it's not quite as bad if I do end up having to bite it. If I had to bite a regular multi-vitamin, I would probably throw it up! I find regular multivitamins so disgusting, I finally had to ask my husband to take his vitamin in the morning because I couldn't stand the smell when he came to bed! As for cutting the pill, as someone suggested, I find that it is better for me to take the whole pill and risk having to chew it than to cut the pill and try to send jagged edges down my throat. It sounds like a previous poster found some pills that may be smaller, which would be great, but I wouldn't like to go through the torture twice a day!
I know that, in my case, my pill swallowing difficulties are psychological. I can swallow food that is much bigger with no problem. The funny thing is...when I was pregnant, I was able to swallow them almost all the time because I was doing it for my baby. Now that I am taking them just for myself, I have a much harder time!! I used to not take a vitamin for this reason. We are not trying for a second just yet (ours is also 15 months), but they say that women of childbearing age should all take a vitamin with folic acid, just in case. My prenatal was the smallest multi-vitamin that I've found AND it has the folic acid, so I'm sticking with it.
Good luck in finding a pill you can handle! Hey, and email me if you find one that is smaller! I certainly wouldn't mind switching.
Take care!
Hi Vanessa - If you want to ensure your baby gets optimal whole food nutrition even before birth that will increase the odds of a healthy baby, please take a look at Juice Plus capsules. It's the nutrients of 17 of the most nutritionally rich fruits, vegetables and whole grains in capsule form. See below the results of a study where participants took Juice Plus in addition to a prenatal and who had drastically reduced pregnancy complications. You can listen to a 15 minute recording by Doctor Odom at University of Mississippi who conducted the study for more details by calling 800-942-1260 (press 2 and 2), or see more research results and doctor recommendations at my website at http://www.juiceplus.com/+cc42230. Feel free to call me if you have any questions or would like to order 949-922-8072 or email [email protected]. Juice Plus has all the green leafy vegetables to provide you the folic acid you need along with a wide variety of other naturally occuring nutrition to prepare you and help sustain your next pregnancy. Everyone's different, so it's not a guarantee that there won't be any problems, but the evidence shows by ensuring a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and whole grains every day will certainly lower your risk of just about all health problems. Juice Plus is just an easy way to do that. I wish you a happy, healthy pregnancy!
PRENATALS --- Prenatals + Juice Plus+
Preterm (< or = 32 wks.) 35 (20%) --- NONE
Preeclampsia 38 (21%) --- NONE
Spontaneous Labor 16 (9%) --- NONE
PROM 6 (3%) --- NONE
NICU Admission 17 (10%) --- NONE
Respiratory Distress 13 (8%) --- NONE
Ave. Birth Weight 3280 grams --- 3507 grams (+227)
Gestational age 38.2 weeks --- 39.3 (+1.1 week)
Duet DHA. By perscription. Ask your doctor. They're about $30/month and well worth it.
I tried several prenatal vitamins and could not take them-without feeling very ill. We are also considering having a second and so -again I tried another food based vitamin-new chapter organics - again felt very sick. I even tried taking vitamins every other day - I will take the sublingal folic acid -prior to trying- because that is the one area where the research actually proves that taking this supplement 1 to 3 months before conception reduces the chance of birth defects. I may try a flinstone vitamin every 2 days. But will mostly stick with organic foods- best wishes to you!
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20070306/ai_n18724344
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2007/05/14/the_fading_allure_of_vitamins/
There is a product called JuicePlus+. JuicePlus+ is 17 tree ripened and vine ripened, matured on the mother tree or mother vine, fruits and vegetables with no pesticides, no herbicides and synergistically put together for you in convienent capsules and chewables and gummies for children. My business partner told me about JuicePlus+ two years ago. She is a Naturopathic Doctor (ND) who took JuicePlus+ as her prenatal vitamins because she had three miscarages and needed to repair her body on the celluar level. She was introduced to JuicePlus+ and her son is now 5 years old. JuicePlus+ is a whole whole food and not a vitamin.
I am a retired chemist and was impressed with the research. My daughter (age 5) was getting sick all of the time and I was in desperate need of something. She has been on the product for 2 years now and hardly gets sick at all.
NSA the makers of JuicePlus+ is currently working on replacing Prenatal vitamins with JuicePlus+.
I am a Stay-at-Home Mom now with my own JuicePlus+ business. You can only buy the product through a representative. Please call me for more information. I look forward to hearing from you.
Denise Riley
661-943-3850
866-311-1490 voice com
www.driley4juiceplus.com
[email protected]
Good suggestions here.
Make sure, along with your prenatal's... take Omega-3 supplements as well... it helps in development of the baby's brain, eyes etc. VERY important. Along with my prescription prenatal vitamins from my OB, I was also given these. It is WELL worth it.
For my three kids, I took the prenatal pills from costco and I never had a problem. They've been formulated into a smaller pill over the last 4.5 years.
good luck
go to Wholefoods or a health store and look for ..i think they're called Super Nutrition or something like that..but they're one a day..and they're easy on the belly..just look for the ones that don't make you ill..also after you get pregs take it right before bed..that cuts out the morning sickness a lot.
I used Twin Lab Pre-natal Care Vitamins. I was very sick during my pregnancy and these did not make me sick. Of course, check with your doctor to make sure he/she agrees. My OB said they were pretty decent. Amazon sells them for a good price. There is a 2 months supply in one bottle. They are average size and there was very little after taste.
Hi-
I couldn't tolerate many, the best one for me was a prescription prenatal called PrimaCare One, very balanced (has the importance stuff you want/need), didn't make me sick, smooth gel tablet, easy to swallow, no yucky taste at all. You will still need to take Calcium separately though. Good luck!
Oh by the way...many of the prescription prenats already have the DHA/Omega 3's, so you don't need to take other supplements.
I used the ones that they have at Costco. They're big, but they don't taste badly at all. :)
My doctor always prescribed them for me and I just took them at night to avoid feeling yucky.
There is a reason we take these vitamins--because we don't get all the whole foods that we need and the folate needed for prevention of disease for the baby.
A really good natural way of getting that is through a whole food capsule named Juice Plus. I have alot of friends who are dieticians and they have figured out all the ingredients and they are more than adequate for pregnancy. There are also studies that show that women who take Juice Plus have less problems with pregnancy--such as pre-eclampsia.
Let me know if you want more info and best of luck with your family!
Karen4betterhealth.com