Nutritionists worldwide suggest that women who have just had a baby, those who are currently pregnant and women who have a wish to conceive should take prenatal vitamins on a daily basis. The key to taking prenatal vitamins is to optimize and take the adequate dose every day. This particularly regards folic acid, since folic acid is vital for ensuring that both the mother and her offspring are safe and sound. After she has given birth, a mother who consumes prenatal vitamins will have no problems with healing her body and recovering from the pregnancy and labor. However, like with everything else in life, there is also the other side of using prenatal vitamins that is not as favorable. Namely, if your body does not react ideally to prenatal vitamins, you might face some side effects.
a. Constipation, Intestinal Upset and Nausea
Generally, women who suffer from prenatal vitamin side effects complain about constipation, nausea and the overall feeling of being ill-at-ease in the abdomen area. The main cause of these unpleasant conditions is nothing else but iron. Women who are pregnant are more prone to being anemic and not having sufficient red blood cells. Iron, being a powerful guard of red blood cells and the one responsible for transferring oxygen through the blood, is therefore most commonly added to prenatal vitamin products. It is possible nowadays to find prenatal vitamins that have no iron whatsoever, only due to the fact that iron pills cause intestinal discomfort. What you can do to avoid these side effects and still consume prenatal vitamins with iron is to take the vitamin dose after a meal or with food. That way you can decrease the chance of having side effects. In order to avoid constipation, make sure to drink lots of water and take sufficient amounts of fiber with your meals.
b. Headaches
If you consume prenatal vitamins, headaches can be another side effect. However, this condition is not brought about by prenatal vitamins. Despite common belief, the real causes of headaches are actually hormonal changes that occur during pregnancy. Prenatal vitamins can cause headaches only in one case. For example, some women have a greater quantity of copper in their body than others. Therefore, with the extra copper they receive from prenatal vitamins, they can boost their copper supplies over the recommended limit and thus, only those women may happen to suffer from vitamin-caused headaches. All the others will have headaches because their hormones are going through so many alterations.
c. Urine Discoloration
It sometimes happens that women’s urine becomes affected by prenatal vitamins. What normally happens is a change of the urine color, caused by the fact that our body cannot process all the vitamin input. For this reason, the extra nutrients are sent out of the body through the urinary tract or through the kidneys. The urine becomes either orange or bright yellow, but it really depends on the individual organism and the capability of the body to process the vitamin input. Scientists have reached the conclusion that B12 vitamin is responsible for the changes in urine, but they have also pointed out that color change does not indicate any serious health conditions or something of concern.
d. Metallic Taste
A metallic taste in the mouth occurs in women who are not accustomed to taking vitamins on a regular basis. Minerals in the vitamin products are to be blamed for this unpleasant taste. A way to change this is to take prenatal vitamins with food and avoid taking vitamins independently. As time passes by, your body will adjust to being exposed to mineral intake and the metallic taste will gradually disappear.