I think I may be pregnant but it's too early to test. I want to start taking prenatal vitamins just to be on the safe side (can't hurt anything, after all). Is there a particular brand of vitamins your OB/Midwife recommended? Please don't recommend anything that needs a prescription because I'm not planning on seeing a midwife until I know for sure I'm having a baby, looking for something I could pick up at a vitamin store.
LOL jscrew...thanks for the brand recommendation but I probably won't be dropping by or calling into the store in Queens when I can get them at the Super Supplements five blocks from my house...on the other side of the country.

I had bought a store brand, and I just bought another kind bc I was running out, and I compared the labels and they were exactly the same. Identical! Just make sure that whatever you get contains folic acid; that's what really matters in early pregnancy.

Any prenatal vitamins sold at any pharmacy or walmart are just fine. Some people can't stomach the tatse of prenatal vitamins. A simple alternative is taking a children's Flintstone vitamin with a folic acid supplement to go with it. This is what I did during my first pregnancy. Even if you aren't pregnant, it is good to take prenatal vitamins anyway just because you are a woman and are plannign ot get pregnant at some time.

surprisingly walmart generic brand prenatals. also it is good to take a omega 3 or a combo 3-6-9. they are good for the baby and you.

My doctor recommends "Materna". I take Materna and I know a lot of women who take it. It has the proper amounts of Folic Acid to prevent defects. Some pre-natal vitamins dont have enough so you have to be careful.

Funny, I just bought Materna yesterday and was checking online all the nutrients that it had compared to the recommended levels and it seems to have more than the recommended levels (like twice as much) of almost everything. Could that be harmful? I've heard that mega-doses of pretty much anything is bad so it makes me worry. should I halve it? I eat pretty healthy as it is... I know I should ask my doctor about this, but my first prenatal checkup isn't until Monday (ok, so maybe I sound kind of rediculous...)

You don't sound ridiculous, you just sound like a concerned new mom. My midwife said that any vitamin that I take and don't need it will just exit my body via urine. So there is not harm in taking more than you think is necessary. Hope that helps Also my midwife told me to be careful about omega 3 or fish pills due to the mercury content and that mercury is not good for growing babies at all.

I suggest Flintstones vitamins. My doctor says if I get to the point where I can't take my prenatals to take two of the flintstones vitamins every day. either chewables or the gummies kind. they both work.

The deficiency of Vitamin D during pregnancy can cause tooth decay problems to the child, says study presented during the general meeting of International Association of Dental Research held in Toronto, Canada. You can read article here.

The only one I know might be bad in too high a quantity is vitamin A. Here's text from Wikipedia's page on vitamin A:

"Toxic effects of vitamin A have been shown to significantly affect developing fetuses. Therapeutic doses used for acne treatment have been shown to disrupt cephalic neural cell activity. The fetus is particularly sensitive to vitamin A toxicity during the period of organogenesis."

Vitamin A - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I think my prenatal vitamin (which is Safeway's generic brand, has a lot of folic acid, etc.) only has 50% of the RDA of vit. A. and it's in the beta carotene form (as opposed to retinoid form) which is for some reason supposed to be less harmful.