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When I found out I was pregnant, my first thought was to find out what my true nutritional needs were for the next 9+ months

So I did what most of us do - I quickly assumed I needed to get on a prenatal. 

When I began pulling up brands and looking at the ingredients though, I wasn't as sure that this was the right option for me. Now, before I go any further please remember this is just my personal experience and choice. This isn't medical advice. But if you've also been looking at prenatals and feeling like they are anything but adequate for our nutritional needs, I understand and you're in the right place!

What I noticed in most prenatal brands

Unfortunately most prenatal brands have a lot of marketing and fluff and exciting words all over their websites but not a whole lot of substance when I would actually look at their ingredients. I was also disturbed by how difficult it was to even FIND the ingredients on many renowned all natural prenatal brands... They were quick to share how excellent their brand was but made it nearly impossible to find a tiny button that said "See full ingredients." Personally, I find that incredibly disingenuous and suspect when ANY brand does that. 

But besides my annoyance with finding hidden ingredient lists (😂) I wasn't too impressed with the ingredients of these prenatal brands. And keep in mind most of these prenatals are $60+ a bottle so one would expect the quality to be very high. 

Here's what I especially didn't like about prenatals 

Many of them contained forms of nutrients that are not easily usable OR lower quality that I wanted

-Vitamin A as beta carotene: the small intestine has to CONVERT beta carotene into retinol, or vitamin a and a LARGE percentage of people struggle with or cannot make this conversion. While we've all been led to believe carrots and sweet potatoes are the best form of vitamin a, this is not true. Real vitamin a, aka retinol, is ONLY found in animal sources like cod liver oil, organ meats, dairy, etc. So when a prenatal is touting that they have beta carotene in it and you're all good, this is far from the truth and confusing to consumers. I'll take my retinol, thank you very much. 

-Vitamin C as ascorbic acid: this can be derived from mold and is not the most easily assimilated form of vitamin c. I prefer whole food options like citrus, rose hips and acerola cherry to get in a form of vitamin c that my body can truly work with and see full benefit from

-Cheap forms of magnesium: many of them contain largely unusable forms of magnesium like magnesium oxide. While it's cheap for companies to use, it's poorly absorbed and doesn't give you the full (essential) benefit of magnesium. Magnesium is very important during pregnancy, but many of the forms brands use and low concentration in the prenatals again does not sell me

-Fillers, cheap ingredients, synthetic ingredients: especially when looking at drug store brands of prenatals, it's common to see a variety of other unnecessary ingredients

So, I gave up on finding a magical prenatal that I'd actually agree with and decided to create my own, so to say. 

What I used to create my own "prenatal"

Again this is what I chose to do, not medical advice

Below you'll find a link to many of these supplements I used

• Beef liver: beef liver is often referred to as nature's multi vitamin and mineral. This was the base supplement I used throughout my pregnancy to give me quality nutrients like vitamin a, iron, copper, zinc and selenium. While you could certainly eat beef liver, I wasn't able to be consistent enough to get it into my body from food so capsules were very helpful
• Magnesium: magnesium is essential during pregnancy, especially during the third trimester. I often it took it before bed and also sometimes used a magnesium cream at bedtime to further support magnesium levels. Epsom salt baths a few times a week were also essential for me
• Fish oil: quality cod liver oil has SO many benefits. To support healthy amounts of omega 3s, vitamin a and vitamin d I enjoyed this daily. Be VERY diligent with fish oil to ensure you're using a good brand and ideally cod liver oil - not oil from other fish. You'll see my favorite brand linked below
• Vitamin E and Vitamin C: I took these intermittently but also found great benefit in taking them a few times a week
• Folate: I did supplement with folate (not folic acid) during my first trimester as well 

While there are many other things I could've taken, I found I was able to source other key nutrients from FOOD! 

You can find these supplements with 15% off on my FullScript account. FullScript is a supplement dispensary that makes buying quality supplements easy and reliable. Take 15% off my favorite supplements here

Food is medicine

Through ingesting lots of quality animal products, dairy and good fats, I felt AMAZING through my pregnancy. And many of my necessary nutrients came from my food - the way nature intended. Lots of Vitamin C from the orange juice in my daily adrenal cocktail, lots of omega 3s and protein from salmon, collagen and glutamine from broth, vitamin a from butter, ghee and organic dairy products, choline from eggs most days - the list goes on!

I think the biggest thing I learned in becoming pregnant was that I needed to be informed and empowered to make the best decision for me and baby. While I immediately thought to hand my power away and take a random prenatal supplement and hope it was fulfilling my needs, I quickly felt that wasn't right. And when I looked at these highly touted prenatal brands, my skepticism was affirmed. 

Is this the right choice for everybody? Probably not!

Was this the right choice for me and my baby? 100%

If you don't feel you're able to ingest enough nutrient dense foods, a prenatal could be a helpful tool for you.

Let me know on IG @menstruationqueen - did you supplement during pregnancy? 

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Sources:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2855261/

https://philmaffetone.com/vitamin-a-and-the-beta-carotene-myth/