Best and worst supplements during pregnancy

Hear what nutritionist Del Millers, PhD, recommends as the best and worst supplements and vitamins for women to take during pregnancy. Find out more about incredible supplements that you can take to help you and your growing baby.
Best Pregnancy Supplements and What to Avoid
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Best and worst supplements during pregnancy

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Should you take supplements for pregnancy, for optimal pregnancy and health, and should certain supplements be avoided? There are supplements that would be great for pregnant women to take. Number one, I would start with a prenatal vitamin. And probably every doctor would recommend that we take that, because as we know, most people don't have the best nutritional habits. So you have to fill in the gaps with the things that a pregnant body will need. you need the folate, you need the calcium, you need the iron. All of those things are included in a good prenatal vitamin supplement. One of the things that I encourage in my pregnant clients to take is again a whole food supplement. Those are even better. Because in an apple you have thousands of phyto-supplements, those are whole food chemicals. So in a whole food supplement, you have 1000s and 1000s of nutrients which include the folate, the calcium, all the vitamins and minerals, so you're getting a lot more of those nutrients from fruits and vegetables. And that is so much more important, because they're in their proper ratio where they work synergistically together, so the woman is getting a lot more there. What I would not recommend is herbal supplements. People have been using herbal supplements for centuries. Yes, I understand that. But one of the things we don't know, we don't know the mechanisms of actions. We don't know how they affect pregnancy. And most importantly, we don't know how they affect the baby. We don't have research on that, because you can't do research on a pregnant lady. So there are just too many unknowns there. So I would recommend during pregnancy, just stay away from herbal supplements, because there is a risk that we don't know about. One other thing I would highly recommend every pregnant woman to take are Omega 3 supplements. Omega 3s are so important for brain development, for vision, and a host of other things that your growing baby needs that it's important to take those. Because unless you're eating a lot of fish, which we'll talk about, chances are you may need more.

Hear what nutritionist Del Millers, PhD, recommends as the best and worst supplements and vitamins for women to take during pregnancy. Find out more about incredible supplements that you can take to help you and your growing baby.

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Del Millers, PhD

Author, Nutritionist

Dr. Del Millers is the founder of TheBestYouAcademy.com and author of eight books on mind-body health and nutrition. A PhD Nutritionist with a Masters degree in psychology, Dr. Del teaches motivation and high performance strategies to busy entrepreneurs and professionals, so that they can make a difference in their lives tomorrow in just ten minutes today.

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