Can't cope with Pregnacare, would it be ok to switch??

[McPhee]

I've given it my best shot, but they are just so damn big that I'm retching before it's even got to my mouth

I'm on my 2nd week of them, so I'm wondering if it's ok to switch to something different or do I just need to suck it up and get on with it.

Of course it's ok to switch

Can't you just snap them in half?

No, you don't need Pregnacare at all! If you want to switch to a different pregnancy multivit, I think the Sanatogen ones are a bit easier to swallow.

Or you could just take the 400mg folic acid pills on their own up till the 3 month point. that is all you really need. The other vitamins, you should be getting from a balanced diet anyway.

My pregnancy brain hadn't even considered halving them

Oh dear, there really is no hope for me

Thanks.

:) Hope that helps!

:) I'm still working my way through pregnancy vitamins; DS is 6months old!

I couldn't swallow pregnacare for a few months in early pregnancy so I bought a couple of different own brand Sainsbury's vitamins and mineral tablets and combined them so that I got a pretty good range, including Folic Acid. They are very small and easy to swallow. The only thing to be careful of is Vitamin A, too much of which isn't ideal.

PS I know you don't need supplements if you have a balanced diet, but that can be hard with morning sickness. I couldn't even look at fruit / veg / meat for about two months.

I was under the impression that you had to avoid the non-pregnancy multivitamins because of the vitamin A. I suppose you could get the different vitamins separately, but I would be wary of getting very high doses of some vitamins, for example if you buy vitamin C tablets some of those are 400% of the RDA.

I tried the Asda pregnancy ones once, they are worse than pregnacare to swallow and they have too much iron in so they smell bad. Boots own are OK but they are still large. If you want to be on the multivits, you could experiment with the different brands as there are quite a few available on the market.

See, this is what happens when no one tells you anything!

I've got a reasonably good diet, except I don't eat any fruit So I was under the impressions that it was a must to be taking these pills during pregnancy. Originally I was just going to get plain old Folic acid, but then when I got to reading a few of the boxes on the shelf I panicked and brought the most expensive

Have you tried getting the fruit by drinking juice and eating dried fruit?

I don't eat much fruit as a general rule, I like the odd banana but don't have them every day. So I try to drink a glass of juice for the vitamin C and I also get snack packs of dried pineapple and mango, which is a bit like eating sweets!

I find the pregnacare (and its Asda copycat version) give me dreadful constipation due to the added iron (I definitely get enough iron from meat) so I went back to the plain folic acid as it was causing me awful pain.

I started drinking a lot of apple juice, but then after two urine infections I don't think it was helping the 'ouch' factor.

What I should probably do is try those kids innocent smoothies. They have no bits in them

No problem with constipation so far thankfully.

You can get chewable prenatal multi vits. Loads of people reckon they make you feel less sick (probably cause you're not swallowing a massive horse pill). Naturally, the taste of them made me want to puke, so I do find it slightly easier with the horse pills, but loads of people swear by the chewables!

with a decent diet, you don't really need the whole range.

you do need the folic acid - they're very small tablets.
and in the 3rd trimester, it's a good plan to take iron and vitamin B complex
Iron: you can get spatone from the chemist (they're sachets of iron rich water and you pour it into your fruit juice)
and vitamin B complex, you can probably get that from your special K (don't have an iron-rich meal and a calcium- rich meal at the same time, because what I've only just learned is that milk stops you absorbing iron)

I didn't take anything extra at all until the 3rd trimester, and I'm 1 week from the end and I've only just started taking iron.

Drink lots of Cranberry juice, then - that'll help against urine infections.

According to my consultant you only need to take folic acid.

Even if you are vomiting your brains out, the baby's nutritional needs are so miniscule that as long as you went into the pregnancy healthy you really have nothing to worry about well into the second trimester.

Plus, if you read the research (and not the marketing!) very little is absorbed from multivitamin supplements. The best source of vitamins and minerals come from food.

And not eating loads of fruit (I don't include berries in this category) is probably better for you. Veg has all the vitamins and minerals you need without all the sugar. (compare the nutritional content of an apple to that of broccoli!).

hope that helps.

I was taking the same pregnacare vitamins and I stopped them because they actually made my morning sickness work. I just took folic acid up until 12 weeks then stopped. You can change them if need be but personally I don't feel you need extra multi vitamins as you should be getting them naturallly from your diet.

thejoan i've been searching for chewable pre-natal vits but not come across any, what are they called? (I know you can get them in the US but not seen any in the UK), thanks

plus i found that taking pregnacare made me sick! some people dont react well to them. i went back to using asda own make maternity multi vitmains and was ok with them

re: vit A its fine if from beta-carotene, only a prob if from retinol (animal source). I took vegetarian multi-vits from heathspan and the contents were pretty similar to pregnacare.... but apart from folic acid you don't actually need to take...