Not All Prenatal Vitamins Are Created Alike

The time period prior to conceiving a baby, during and after are critical for both baby and mom.

Pre-conception allows the eggs in a woman’s body to be prepared for fertilization, as each egg is prepared for ovulation.  Additionally, pre-conception nutrition is important because there’s always a period of time between actual fertilization of an egg (conception) and when a woman becomes aware of a pregnancy.  And, this is perhaps some of the most crucial time in a pregnancy when an embryo is just beginning development and is most sensitive to a lack of nutrients.

As baby grows, a mother’s caloric needs can nearly double. Not all women are able to meet these caloric needs for a variety of reasons - morning sickness can lead to unintentional caloric restriction and therefore maintaining adequate nutrition is important.

Following delivery, caloric needs increase even more if a mother is nursing the baby.  Producing breast milk is a highly energetic process and nutritional demands are at their peak.  Again, baby is highly dependent on adequate nutrition from breast milk in the first months of life.

Thorne’s Basic Prenatal is gentle, yet powerful multivitamin-mineral designed for women who are trying to conceive, maintain a pregnancy and nursing.

This isn’t your grocery store prenatal.  It contains only the metabolically active forms of folate (5-methyltetrahydrofolate, or 5-MTHF) and methylated vitamin B12 (methylfolate), as well as a gentle form of iron that won’t worsen constipation or cause stomach pain (iron bisglycate).

All the other nutrients in this vitamin are provided in their naturally occurring form so that each is well absorbed and ready to be utilized by the body.

There’s non of the unnecessary food coloring, preservatives, shellac or other additives in grocery store vitamins, either.

Benefits:

Pre-Conception:

• Daily nutritional support for women expecting to conceive

First Trimester:

• Folate is vital for healthy brain and spinal cord development.  The bioactive 5-MTHF ensures optimal utilization of this vitamin.
• Vitamins K, B6 and C may help alleviate morning sickness

Second Trimester:

• Iron bisglycinate meets a woman’s needs for the huge demand on red blood cell production at this stage.

Third Trimester: 

• Provides all the additional nutrients that both baby and mom need for healthy development and preparation for birth.

Nursing:

• This prenatal is ideal in this stage as well, providing additional calcium and vitamin D to be incorporated into breastmilk for baby.
  
  

Ideally, Thorne Basic Prenatal should be taken in the morning with food (some find B-vitamins can be stimulating and affect sleep).  However, when it comes down to it the best time to take this prenatal is whatever time of day works best for a woman - there are no ‘rules’ with this.  The only important thing to remember is to take it with food!