British study that associates daily supplements in third trimester with preterm birth... your...

[nia82]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20353456

I know that prenatals aren't taken as in the USA back home in Germany. My sisters only took a folate supplement and some iron (some obgyns are starting to offer prenatal samples, but no insurance covers them). They stopped with folate at 16 weeks... My doctor sister finds the complete prenatals as available in the USA completely overkill. I take New Chapter prenatals, but 2 instead of 3 daily, by 16 weeks it will be reduced to 1 daily and later on probably on every other day. Depending on my CBCs I might add some Floradix. Anyways, I find this study pretty intriguing. Especially since if one takes the full amount of prenatals you still get so much more vitamins from fortified pasta, bread, juices, etc - it's in everything.

[MyFillingQuiver]

Wow, interesting. I'd like to know what type of vitamins/minerals, and at what levels were included in the prenatals. I know my prenatals do not contain 100% of any vitamin, and I actually take more cal/mag separately-along with some other things.

Interestingly, for me, my only preterm birth (out of 6 babies-well, I'm 35 weeks right now, but not looking at any issues at this point) was the one where I wasn't taking supplements.

[kittywitty]

My only preterm (more like near term 36 weeks and induced) I actually didn't have prenatal vitamins-couldn't afford them. Otherwise it hasn't been true for me. I wonder, also, what levels they used.

[taffywelsh]

I take the Rainbow Light "Petite" prenatals...the ones you are supposed to take three of. I only take one, and before I got the jar of "Petites" I just cut the big vitamin in half. I've been doing that since exactly week 16.

The thing is, it was random when I started dividing the vitamins. At that point (which just happened to be the first day of week 16) I realized my need for extra folate was over, I was already supplementing with calcium, vitamin D, fish pills, and eating iron rich foods. I just thought that there were too many vitamins in the prenatals and it was useless and maybe counterproductive to take a whole one every day. I did supplement with iron for a couple of weeks later on, but it made me sick so I quit that. My bloodwork showed my iron to be low but normal after having stopped with it, so that's all from food.

If you could tell me why week 16 seems to be the magic number here, I would really appreciate it! I'm glad I accidentally did it the German way.

[graciegal]

As an epidemiologist myself, I have to say this is quite interesting. With an OR (odds ratio) of 3.4, you don't usually see results that high. (Odds ratio means it's that much higher odds than control).

Remember though, epidemiological studies (like this cohort study) can only show correlation, not causation!! HUGE difference... other confounding factors are most likely at play, here...