Are we on folic acid forever?!

[Arlington77]

Hi ladies,
Just wanted to pick your brains about folic acid: are you planning to take it throughout your pregnancy? I'm 12 weeks (TODAY!) and obviously I've been taking it for ages prior to conceiving and throughout my pregnancy thus far, just wondered if it's probably best to carry on with it. Or, if you're already a mother, what did you do?
I'm seeing midwife later today (for my 12-week scan!) so I will ask her, of course, but I'd be interested to know what everyone else does.
I feel like I rattle in the mornings anyway with all the different preg vitamins and supplements, and one extra tiny folic acid pill isn't a problem, but you know :-)
xxxx

You are normally told you can stop taking it after the first trimester. Also pregnancy vitamins often have folic acid in too. Your body will get rid of any it doesn't need so you can't 'overdose' on it.

My midwife told me to stop after 12 weeks as they wonder if more people taking folic acid in multivitamins is linked to the increase in tongue tie.

I took pregnacare the whole way through. The midwife said i could stop after 12 weeks but advised a vit D supplement and iron for me as I have a history of anaemia. It was easier to keep taking pregnacare rather than different (although probably cheaper) supplements. In the end my first scan pushed my dates back two and a half weeks so I'm glad I carried on taking it.

hi. you mention you are taking pregnancy vitamins also. They usually contain the right dosage (think it 400mg), so you shouldn't need to take an extra folic acid on top of that.
I took pregnacare throughout both pregnancies, so yes that meant I had folic acid thorough out.
enjoy your scan. x

My midwife told me to stop at 12 weeks too because it's linked to babies being born tongue tied. I'm nearly 14 weeks and I'm still taking it (simply because it's in my multivitamin).

I’m on other medication so was prescribed folic acid at 5mg and took it the whole way through and after.

There's no reason you need to take it after 12 weeks. If you are taking separate vitamins (you should also be taking vitamin D all pregnancy and iron is a good idea too), then you can just stop the folic acid. If it's part of a pregnancy vitamin, just carry on taking all of them. You don't need it, but there's no harm in taking it either.

As for the link between folic acid and tongue tie, I've never seen an evidence of this (I do health research). There are a few wacky blogs that seem to expose it, but most of them seem to argue that it's actually a deficiency that's linked to tongue tie, not taking it after 12 weeks. But they seem to link this deficiency to having a MTHFR defect. So argue that it's folate we should be taking, not folic acid, to prevent tongue tie, but taking folic acid won't actually give your baby tongue tie. But obviously, that's only if you have MTHFR to begin with. But again, that's just from reading blogs (blogs which don't like all that scientifically well referenced, for that matter). I don't see anything in the scientific literature about this, so I don't really know where it's coming from.

Yes I thought tt was linked to deficiency of folic acid rather than too much, but again just from word of mouth.

I'm taking them still because they're free and contain vit d as well. No real need after 1st trimester though.

This post has got me worried! I'm exactly 12 weeks today as well, and it's my first. I'm taking the vitamins the midwife gave me and she never told me not to stop taking them! Should I be today? They are the NHS vitamins for women?

I took the NHS Healthy Start vitamins throughout my whole pregnancy, the midwife advised to just keep taking them. Had no ill effects from doing so.

Folic acid helps with iron absorption so it's a good idea to keep taking it if you struggle to keep your iron at a healthy level but otherwise the advise is to take it prior to pregnancy and during the first trimester :)

With ds I took pregnacare throughout. All was fine.

My midwife advised Tomcontinue to take the pregnacate max throughout but these were making me really nauseous and sick, she said I could stop them but must take vitamin D and folic acid throughout. Boots do a vit D and folic acid in one, so I’ve been taking them since 16 weeks .

My midwife specifically told me to carry on taking my folic acid/vit d tablet post first trimester as the folic acid helps with the vit d absorption. So that's what I'm doing!

I was told the same by GP re folic acid and potential tongue tie link. I stopped taking the multivitamin containing folic acid at 12 weeks as it was the worst thing for triggering my nausea. Continued taking vit d and that was fine