In your first trimester, nausea can be brutal. For me, swallowing pills was a trigger for nausea and vomiting. That led to an ongoing search for prenatals that I could take and keep down. Without pills, your main options are gummy and liquid vitamins. For any liquid options, having them not taste like medicine is a must.
Regardless of the type of prenatal, the two most important criteria I searched for were vitamins that had:
- DHA with a personal preference for a plant-based source
- Folate or folic acid with a personal preference for folate/methylfolate as it’s the natural version vs. the synthetic folic acid
Other criteria of interest but not mandatory were:
- Choline supplementation
- B12 as a I’m a vegetarian
Gummy Vitamins
My top gummy recommendation go to Mother’s Promise. These were genuinely so tasty and met all my criteria.
When those ran out of stock online for a bit, I struggled to find others that met the criteria and tasted good. After trying several nausea-inducing vitamins, I ultimately transitioned to these tasty ones from Hello Lovely. Truthfully, they’re delightful. The only negative is the DHA and EPA sources were not plant-based if that’s something important to you.
Everyone’s tastes are different during pregnancy so you may find you have different experiences, but the SmartyPants and New Chapter are gummy vitmains that didn’t agree with me and resulted in gagging or vomiting.
Liquid Vitamin:
A liquid option I used for a lot of my pregnancy was LiquidHealth. The taste was fine but the smell was a bit off-putting some days which made drinking it straight a challenge at times. However, after a recommendation from an ultrasound tech, I learned that mixing it with ice cream can help. For a healthier option, I learned that mashing and mixing it with an Outshine fruit bar made it palatable and satisfied my pregnancy sweet tooth at the same time.