Pre Pregnancy/conception vitamins recomendations

[ChesterFuckingDraws]

Feel slightly nervous/silly posting this! DH and I have decided to try for a baby (which makes me so nervous even just typing that!) I’ve been reading up over the past few days about supplements I should be taking and I’m a bit bamboozled!
I’m 35 (so getting on a fair bit,) relatively healthy, eat a pretty balanced diet and work shifts, can anyone tell me what on earth I should be taking or what I should look for in a supplement?
Any help/advice/suggestions would be much appreciated

The basic minimum are folic acid and vitamin d. There's actually some evidence that iodine is important for very early foetal brain development and maternal thyroid health but if you eat the rda of dairy and white fish weekly you should be ok.

Pregnacare is a good all rounder with a range of extra things at higher doses but more expensive. I did/ do find the extra b vits in it helpful for regulating my cycle though. Boots own versions are cheaper and have the basic 100% rda (more for folic acid and vit d) that you need in roughly the same range of vitamins.

Some women find iron useful if they are a bit low.

I do personally like fish oils too so took pregnacare with them.

Ideally take anything for 3 months before conception.

If you are worried about age it's worth reading "it starts with the egg" for some extra tips.

It's also very much worth Dh also taking folic acid and vit d or a male prenatal too, and cutting back on alcohol and caffeine like you. There is evidence to show reductions in mc and better sperm quality.

Good luck!

I took pregnacare pre-conception tablets for 3 months before we started trying
:)

I second the pregnecare conception for 3 months before starting to try. They say on the box that It's supposed to create the optimum environment/conditions for conception. They do one for men and women.

However, we ended up trying for about 2 years and it's quite pricey. I switched to regular Tesco pregnancy vitamin and DH just took a normal vitamin every day. It worked for us in the end!

The reason they suggest 3 months is to firstly raise levels of key things eg folic acid and also as it takes roughly 2-3 months for new eggs and sperm to mature and so mature with the extra needed nutrients.

I was also told to do this by an obstetrician too.

I used seven seas as it was cheaper than pregnacare I think, worked for me!

Thank you, I’ll get to the shops today and start taking them ASAP 😬
I’m under no illusion this is going to be a quick journey (we’re not that lucky!)

Just a slight word of warning - if you have regular cycles and no obvious issues I’d be wary of taking too many supplements. The ones recommended are folic acid and vitamin D. Last time round I took the seven seas conception vitamins and they really messed my cycles up (I assume it was them as I didn’t do anything different)! It’s also really expensive to take fancy things that you don’t really need - id personally stick to folic acid + vit d and a balanced diet x

Ah thank you, maybe start off with the basics and see how it goes.