Worried about vitamin A, feel so silly. Please can anyone advise?

[mrsdicaprio]

I found in the cupboard what I thought was a packet of sweets and ate three packets (today). Two yesterday and two one day last week. They are just sweets. However dh has just pointed out to me that they are not. They are multivitamins he bought for dc and forgot about. I was so hungry and greedy I didn't even look I just ate them thinking they were like mini packets of Haribo kept safe for treats.

I've had three packets today. Looked on the back and I should be ok with folic acid and vitamin d and calcium as they are for kids and ill need more than that anyway, but it says they contain 600ug per dose of vitamin A, and when I Googled that it says to avoid in pregnancy all together. I've therefore had 1800ug or micrograms more than I should and it says the danger is birth defects.
I'm out of my mind with worry. What have I done? I'm 30 weeks, someone tell me bump will be ok? Please help

Don't panic - you've had three days where you've basically had 2 or 3 kids vitamin pills. It's not that big a deal!

Also, at 30 weeks I doubt you'd be able to cause birth defects, your baby is pretty much developed now and is just getting fatter.

Speak to your midwife to put your mind at rest, but honestly I think you will be fine. Remember it wasn't that long ago that pregnant women were advised to eat loads of liver and everyone wasn't born with birth defects!

Oh bless you, I'd be in a panic too.

But I'll try to do the calm rational thing for you. Normal daily RDA for vit A is 800ug, so you've had twice that in one day, and more like 1.5x that on another couple of days, is that right?

You still need vit A when you're pregnant, it's just not recommended you take supplements of it because high doses have been linked to birth defects.

Vit A is one of those vitamins your body stores up, so the daily amount should matter less than the amount in you diet over time. So unless you have been getting huge amounts of vit A from other dietary sources I doubt you have anything at all to worry about.

As others have pointed out, all the major development is done and dusted by 30 weeks, your baby is just getting bigger now . So even if you had totally ODed on Vit A (which you haven't really to any significant degree) it would be much less likely to have an impact now.

For peace of mind it's probably worth a call to your midwife but I'm confident everything will be just fine.

Most advice given in pregnancy errs massively on the side of caution - but if they didn't give that advice then the would be people who would be scoffing chicken liver pate for every meal (as I would do given half a chance) which wouldn't be wise.

get medical help. you have had an accidental overdose of at least two dangerous substances ( vit D is more dangerous than vit A)

I actually think the baby is at a stage where it is likely to be fairly safe, but still, you have had an overdose yourself, and possible the baby has too.

I'm not sure of the details but I know a vit D overdose can lead to liver failure, even in adults, so you need to take the wrappers and go and get a medical assessment, now.

I suggested labour ward or triage as many community midwives don't give out their contact numbers and so we normally tell women to call the labour ward if they have any queries if they are over 23 weeks pregnant .
Also a midwife would then be able to confer with an obstetrician or the labs to see if there would be an issue .
They won't report you to social services don't worry!

Also Midwives are not supposed to give medical advice over the Internet .

(I am a midwife)

1800iu is not something I would worry about - one study that looked into it, was talking about median daily dose of vitamin A of 50,000 IU per day (range 10,000-300,000 IU per day). It also didn't find any malformations if the exposure was late in pregnancy.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9988877

Some other studies that found a link to malformations saw mothers taking supplements of 25,000 IU/day or more.

Therefore, the dose you took is low, and especially at this stage, unlikely to cause issues.

I think some people are reading the OP thinking she's had lots and lots of vitamin pills, whereas she's only actually had three child-sized doses in one day (one pack = one daily child dose).

I've just read a bit on the link between vit A and birth defects - there is a higher likelihood of birth defects amongst women who have more than 4x RDA of vit A on a daily basis throughout pregnancy, not just a bit too much on a couple of occasions. And even then the risk period is early pregnancy.

Please don't panic OP - call for reassurance but it will be fine.

Just call for advice, you don't have to give your name.

You need to find out and check to be sure, Plateocrumbs, I know those gummibear looking vitamins, and it is one bear per day, not one packet.

Oh and I should apologise too - I thought it was another poster questioning me as I wasn't paying attention to names on posts!

Sorry!

hijk I assume the OP meant something like this:

fitvits.com/gummybears.php

Which is daily packs containing 5 bears, each pack containing 600ug of vitamin A.

OP if I'm wrong and you've actually consumed substantially more then please ignore my advice.

Okay, by my reckoning, you have had about 5,333 IU of Vit A.

The study that started the worries about Vit A and birth defects was a 1995 Boston U study that wasn't particularly very rigorously designed. For a start, it didn't measure blood levels; instead, it relied on questionnaires about diet and supplements .

There have been later trials (Swiss and Italian) that found no association with birth defects in women who consumed 30,000 to 50,000 IU of vitamin A a day while they were pregnant (some women were consuming a hellova lot more with no subsequent issues).

Make of that what you will, op. I have personally found that NHS guidelines don't often take the most recent research into account when it comes to nutrition and pregnancy. That is not a criticism of NHS policy and protocols, more of a recognition that the cogs tend to turn pretty slowly.

And the Vitamin D council suggest that an overdose of Vit D is about 300,000 IU or ore than 10,000 IU/day for the past three months or longer.

Considering that my pre-natal vitamins contain 400iu and I take them every day, and I also take a prescribed further 800iu to mitigate against complications, and the Vit D council suggests 4000iu to 6000iu a day for pregnant women, I strongly suspect that these children's vitamins, even if you have eaten three packets will not contain enough Vit D to give you an overdose.

However, do seek medical advice. They may be able to check your blood levels to give you peace of mind.

if they are daily packs, then that is not going to be so bad.

worksallhaours, a single dose of vitamin D can kill outright, it doesn't have to be over any length of time, not that it sounds like the OP has had a massive dose, it would normally be from liver.

IMO you'll be fine. Those gummi vitamins are 5 bears a day from age 3 up, so they are a low dose anyway. They contain nothing LIKE the levels that studies have found to be harmful (lots of links posted above so I won't repeat). In addition surely vitamin A is not retrospectively toxic, it can interfere with normal development but it doesn't harm what is already normally developed. Therefore I cannot see any rational way eating a few packs of toddler vitamins at 30weeks pregnant is possibly going to cause any harm. For those panicking and saying omg go to l&d/triage - by what mechanism do you think harm may have been caused?

OP I would call your midwife if you're really panicking, mention it at your next appointment if you're not. And go buy some haribo's for when your gummi-appetite returns :)

kitchentale, vit a and vit d doses both cause liver failure, but if those packs are one-pack-a-day, then the size of the overdose is really quite small. I knew some that were one-bear-a-day, that would be different.

I think that you will be fine as it's a fat soluble vitamin which I think means that most of what you have taken will be stored in your fat. It is your average daily intake which counts rather than how much you have consumed in one go. Also you are well past the high risk stage regarding teratogenic effects.

My first thought was that at 30 weeks they are pretty well formed and just "maturing" like lungs and stuff and laying down more fat stores, etc. fingers toes arms legs etc that were there in the 20 week scan will still be there!

hijk

Sorry if it wasn't clear. The VitD council suggest an overdose of Vitamin D would occur with a single dose of 300,000iu OR a regular dose of 10,000iu over a three month period.

To get a single dose of 300,000iu, you would have to consume 60 of the highest potency VitD capsules on the market (ie. outside prescription) in a confined space of time. Or you would have to take two of the highest potency capsules every day for three months.

or eat the wrong liver.....

Can I just thank everybody for the non judgemental sensible advice that I really needed. I was envisaging more "get a grip" "how the hell? " kind of advice but it really restored my faith in good old mumsnet.
Sensible & non judgemental in an Aibu as well Seriously thank you so much. I have my sensible head on now and have looked at some of the studies, it's only a tiny overdose and the danger is in the early days, in fact I even found one study that said vitamin A was beneficial in the last few weeks for lung development so I probably won't bother phoning labour ward up although I can completely see why some said to do that.

I was really greedy silly and have sent dh out for a takeaway nandos after reading one of the other Aibu ' s so cravings are in control now. I'll mention it to the midwife when I see her.

accidents happen to all of us mrsdicaprio!