Do you still take prenatal vitamins?

[foodymama]

DD is 21 mo. and I am still taking prenatal vitamins. Is that weird? I was just reading a thread in Toddlers about children's vitamins and was wondering if I should keep take the prenatals or think about getting DD her own vitamins. What do you do?

[Baby_Cakes]

I try to be good about taking my prenatals, but often forget. I was so good taking them while pg, but after she was born I didn't make it a priority. I wish I had. I didn't eat as healthily as I would have liked during her first year.

I didn't start giving Nora a liquid vitamin until she was around 15 months old, and then it was only b/c we did start nursing less. I don't give it regularly. Maybe I should?

I'm interested to see what others say.

[foodymama]

Thank you for sharing Baby Cakes! I'm still interested in what others do too.

[LROM]

My dd is 15 mos and though I have seriously slacked off this last month, I've continued to take my prenatal pretty religiously every day befor that. I did cut back to 2/3 the dose (I take New Chapter food-based prenatals and usually it's 3/day; it's expensive and I figure I'm eating better than I did when preggers and sick all the time so I cut back to 2/day plus a few other supplements).

I haven't been giving dd a regular supplement directly but my doc did say he's concerned about vit D levels and I should because of that. I think she's starting to cut back on breastfeeding so I do feel like I've got to make some decision soon about whether to give her supplements directly - but she balks and fights when I try to give her the liquid baby vits so not sure what to do.

What are other moms doing about that?

[sunnygir1]

I stopped taking prenatals because of ds colic and tummy troubles. I don't think it's weird to keep taking them until your lo weans. They are largely B-vitamins, and I would take a B-complex if I wasn't taking a prenatal (except when I'm on an elimination diet for baby) I haven't started again, but probably will soon. I started giving dd a multi, kind of sporadically, around 2yo, I think. I also give her probiotics and fish oil.

[mambera]

I am anti-vitamin. It's been shown in several studies that people who take multivitamins have higher all-cause mortality than those who do not.

I actually did not take prenatals when I was pregnant; I took a separate folate (because there is strong literature support for prevention of neural tube defects) and iron because I am mildly anemic. I am not aware of specific literature support for any other supplement so I didn't take them. I think the appropriate place to get micronutrients is in your diet, not in a pill.

The best analogy I ever saw was that micronutrients are like nails in the boards of your house. You need the right number of nails for the house to stay up and that's all. Hammering lots of extra nails in random places is unlikely to be useful and may possibly be harmful.

My two cents.

[LROM]

Originally Posted by mambera

I am anti-vitamin. It's been shown in several studies that people who take multivitamins have higher all-cause mortality than those who do not.

I actually did not take prenatals when I was pregnant; I took a separate folate (because there is strong literature support for prevention of neural tube defects) and iron because I am mildly anemic. I am not aware of specific literature support for any other supplement so I didn't take them. I think the appropriate place to get micronutrients is in your diet, not in a pill.

The best analogy I ever saw was that micronutrients are like nails in the boards of your house. You need the right number of nails for the house to stay up and that's all. Hammering lots of extra nails in random places is unlikely to be useful and may possibly be harmful.

My two cents.

I don't think it's wise to consider vitamins/no vitamins totally in isolation, away from also examining your general health and what you eat on a regular basis.

If you eat a very balanced, healthy diet, you may well not need any vitamins (beyond folate when preggers and various other things depending on your health condition). But if you do not eat a balanced diet, or know that you eat more of some things than you should and not enough of others, to keep with your house/nails metaphor, it's like only looking at one section of your house to see if the nails are adequate. If you don't look at the whole structure and asses building materials and layout, your house may still fall down even if you put in just the right number of nails.

[foodymama]

Originally Posted by sunnygir1

I stopped taking prenatals because of ds colic and tummy troubles. I don't think it's weird to keep taking them until your lo weans. They are largely B-vitamins, and I would take a B-complex if I wasn't taking a prenatal (except when I'm on an elimination diet for baby) I haven't started again, but probably will soon. I started giving dd a multi, kind of sporadically, around 2yo, I think. I also give her probiotics and fish oil.

Thanks for saying I'm not weird! I guess I'll keep taking them and see what happens.

[spirit4ever]

I eat quite well, and stopped taking prenatals when dd was born

[mambera]

Originally Posted by LROM

I don't think it's wise to consider vitamins/no vitamins totally in isolation, away from also examining your general health and what you eat on a regular basis.

If you eat a very balanced, healthy diet, you may well not need any vitamins (beyond folate when preggers and various other things depending on your health condition). But if you do not eat a balanced diet, or know that you eat more of some things than you should and not enough of others, to keep with your house/nails metaphor, it's like only looking at one section of your house to see if the nails are adequate. If you don't look at the whole structure and asses building materials and layout, your house may still fall down even if you put in just the right number of nails.

Okay, granted.

But I would still say that it is suboptimal to replace missing dietary micronutrients with pills. Those nutrients may not be appropriately absorbed or utilized when taken out of their normal food context, or when present in severely mismatched amounts.