Forgetting folic acid

[CrmbleBee]

Hi guys,

Really worried as now 11 weeks pregnant and have missed a lot of folic acid tablets- the ones I have are supposed to be taken after your main meal and I keep forgetting until the next morning or when I wake up in the middle of the night. Really concerned as I know baby's neural tube should be closed by now and any damage has been done- any one got any reassuring anecdotes?

Thanks x

Other generations never took them and we’re fine! Chances are in this day and age with our rich western diets we are stocked up anyway. I know it’s a panic, I panic also! I was supposed to be taking extra and never found out until afterwards but all is fine. If you’re struggling taking them with meals just take them whenever though, I usually took mine after breakfast or I’d eat an apple and take one

I think I took one of them when I was pregnant but they are huge so I didn't bother after that. I have an annoying but healthy 3 year old so it didn't do her any damage.

It's best to just take them when you remember. Folic acid has really reduced the incidence of Spina Bifida and it's really important to take Vitamin D too it helps to prevent post natal depression.

Do you eat breakfast cereal? My morning sickness was too bad to take them some days but I could eat fortified cereal which I found reassuring.

Were you taking them whilst ttc?

I took them for three months while TTC and was good at it in early pregnancy because they were tiny ones and it didn't matter when I took them. Switched to Pregnacare after a while and became far less regular with them. I do eat cereal sometimes, but usually toast.

If you took them whilst TTC that definitely helps - I really wouldn’t worry about it too much as you will have boosted your levels with what you have taken. The pregnancy multivitamins really contributed to my nausea so I struggled to get and keep them down!

Thanks. It's hard not to worry, but I guess I'll have to wait and see. DH is annoyingly chilled out about it all!

But when you say you remember later, does that mean you are taking them, but just at a different time? So that’s ok!

I have hyperemesis and kept forgetting / couldn't stomach them for pretty much my entire pregnancy and my baby is fine. I didn't even have a varied diet and lived on hula hoops. I did take it whilst ttc though but not once I started being sick!

It really doesn’t matter when you take them during the day, the pregnacare ones have a habit of making people feel queasy if taken on an empty stomach (and who needs that on top of morning sickness!?) which is why they say take them after a main meal.

The iron in pregnacare quite often makes people constipated too.

At 11/12 weeks you can probably drop the folic acid anyway and just rake vit D.

Pregnacare is just a gimmicky expensive multivitamin marketed at pregnant women IMO.

In short - don’t worry.

Argh actually no this has made me cross.

It’s really not your fault OP, and everything will be absolutely fine, but you have stopped taking the perfectly good tablets that you had happily been taking for months, and because of pregnacare’s pretence that it is something special and better (it isn’t) you have instead been missing taking your folic acid it because of the silly time restrictions.

So actually you would have been better staying on your previous tablets that you were happy with.

It’s shit like this that makes me really really cross with the way pregnacare is being marketed. It makes people feel like crap at a time they feel pretty rubbish anyway

I’m 12 weeks and the prenatals I take (not pregnacare) still make me feel sick. I missed taking them more around 6-8 weeks as I just couldn’t handle feeling even more nauseous than I was.

Yy to pregnacare being massive and expensive! When i was pregnant i just carried on having my usual daily Aldi Beroccas as they have all the vitamins in that i needed. I also got some holland and barratt vit d as they did them in nice small tablets rather than the horse sized tablets that made me gag!

I'm on pregnacare currently as got them on a good deal, however I take them first thing in the morning otherwise I'd never remember!

I wasn’t taking pregnacare - it was a supermarket own-brand pregnancy multivitamin but it had the same nausea-inducing effect. Given that most of my life pre-pregnancy I was eating a wide range of nutrients I doubt I really needed anything beyond the recommended folic acid and vit d. Now that I am past 12 weeks I have stopped the multivitamin (as no longer need the folic acid) and I’m just taking a little vitamin d tablet

I wasn’t taking pregnacare - it was a supermarket own-brand pregnancy multivitamin but it had the same nausea-inducing effect. Given that most of my life pre-pregnancy I was eating a wide range of nutrients I doubt I really needed anything beyond the recommended folic acid and vit d. Now that I am past 12 weeks I have stopped the multivitamin (as no longer need the folic acid) and I’m just taking a little vitamin d tablet

"My GP said we get all our folic acid through a varied diet and fortified cereals and bread and had to be pushed by the midwife to prescribe the higher dose at all!"

That GP is wrong. 80% of women of childbearing age are thought to be folate deficient, which is why the Scottish and Welsh governments are lobbying Westminster for flour to be fortified with folic acid.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42199080

"Other generations never took them and we’re fine!"

This is such a ridiculous reason for anything!

3.2 per 1000 births were affected by spina bifida in the 1970s.
In 1997, that was 0.14 per 1000 births, thought in part due to antenatal diagnosis and termination but also increased folate intake.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10693061

Crmblebee, it looks like taking folic acid before conception is the most important time and you had done that. It appears that most neural tube defects occur around 3-4 weeks after conception so really very, very early on.

Isn’t it in the US where everything is fortified? I didn’t think ours was

Thanks again guys
@pastabest it annoys me too. My midwife told me to switch to a pregnancy multivitamin. And they make me feel very unwell. If I get pregnant again after this one, I'm sticking to my tiny folic acid tabs. I just took them first thing- so much easier!

Switch to Pregnacare Liquid. Can get it from Boots

Believe me, I forget them too! During the first 3 months, I could not even stand straight and a drinking the folic tablets was just out of the question. Hopefully there would be no affects to the baby. I try not to think about it though.

I never found out I was pregnant till 12 weeks (totally unplanned) so never took any folic acid before then and only take some occasionally now at 21 weeks. My anomaly scan was perfectly healthy and because they had such a good clear view of baby they asked me to go to the local university so they could give the students an example. My mums a midwife and she says her patients worry too much if they miss even one pill - it's those mums that are at risk (e.g. Smokers, obese, diabetic, those with family history of genetic disorders) are the ones who really need to be taking nearly everyday.