Collaborative ECHO research led by Katherine Sauder, PhD of the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus highlights six key nutrients essential for healthy pregnancies and identifies the best prenatal dietary supplements available in the United States to help pregnant women get the right amounts of these nutrients. Out of over 20,000 choices, the researchers found one prenatal dietary supplement that may potentially provide the right amounts of the most important nutrients needed during pregnancy: vitamin A, vitamin D, folic acid, calcium, iron, and omega-3 fatty acids. However, the supplement costs $200 per month and requires the patient to take seven pills a day, so the researchers identified other, more accessible vitamin supplement options that provide as close a match to the needed of amounts of nutrients as possible. This research, titled “Selecting a dietary supplement with appropriate dosing for six key nutrients in pregnancy," is published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
It is important for pregnant women to get optimal amounts of the right nutrients. There are thousands of options for prenatal vitamins in the United States, so ECHO researchers designed this study to help pregnant women and doctors select the ones that contain optimal doses of key micronutrients to support a healthy pregnancy.
This study included 2,450 pregnant participants from six ECHO cohorts located across the United States. ECHO researchers first analyzed data about what participants ate and drank during their pregnancies. Then, they calculated how much of the six key nutrients (vitamin A, vitamin D, folic acid, calcium, iron, and omega-3 fatty acids) mothers were getting in their regular diet. The researchers compared the participants’ diets to nutrition recommendations for pregnancy to determine the amount of nutrients the participants would need from prenatal vitamins to supplement their diet.
“This research will inform pregnant patients and their doctors about key nutrients they may be missing in their diet and help them choose prenatal vitamins that can provide the nutrients they need,” said Dr. Sauder. “Dietary supplement manufacturers can also use these results to inform better dosing in their products.”
The results of this study highlight the ongoing need for prenatal vitamin options that are low cost and convenient, while still containing the optimal amounts of key nutrients. More research on nutrients in foods will also be needed to help pregnant patients get more of these key nutrients in their daily diets.