There are plenty of supporters of prenatal vitamins. The biggest risk they would say is that you will overdose on iron, in which case you should stop taking those prenatal vitamins immediately. But there are certain benefits that some would say simply cannot be replaced with diet. Of course, there are plenty of societies where they do not use prenatal vitamins. But in many third world countries or societies where this happens, they also have a relatively high infant mortality rate. So the problem becomes more severe than some would think. The question is, in a society such as ours, where we obviously have more abundance of food and other sources of vitamins, can a diet actually work to replace the use of prenatal vitamins?

The good news is that there are plenty of vitamins found in food, and some would be better to get from food. For example, they are saying that calcium coming from food is a significantly higher grade and absorbability as compared to that found in supplements. So ideally, you could save some money with a healthy diet.

The bad news is that we too often forget about what a healthy diet is, and it changes for a pregnant mother. Within the first 6 weeks of life, a diet high in folate would be absolutely necessary to ensure healthy neural development. But most would not take the time to eat foods that are specifically high in folate. And you will find that the best prenatal vitamins will take care of this for you. They will make sure that your body is getting extra amounts of certain vital nutrients and vitamins that your body needs more of at this particular time, and therefore, it will help you to get far better results that you may miss out on even with what you think is a healthy diet.