Research suggests that up to 95% of women experience nutritional depletion, even with a prenatal vitamin.
At our core, Needed is committed to a higher standard of research-backed and expert-vetted supplements designed to combat nutritional depletion. Our commitment to constant improvement through investments in scientific advancements and clinical insights led to the birth of Needed Labs. We know that research has the power to change minds and care paradigms.
Investing in perinatal nutrition research is core to our approach at Needed and aligns with our commitment to provide Unrivaled Nutrition for Fertility, Pregnancy and Postpartum – in support of women’s health and the health of future generations.
Why Did We Conduct This Study?
Nutrition plays a key role in shaping health for women and future generations – yet it has become increasingly challenging to meet nutritional needs through diet alone. On top of this, when a woman becomes pregnant, her body goes through major changes, and her baby’s growing needs require more nutrients, especially important vitamins and minerals. For these reasons, women’s health experts recommend that pregnant women take daily prenatal vitamins, which are ultimately designed to fill nutrient gaps in our diets.
While the importance of maternal nutrition to support the health of women and future generations is well accepted by perinatal health experts – an emphasis on optimizing nutrition in standard of care for women’s health across the lifespan is lacking. And, standard prenatal vitamins are formulated to meet recommendations for nutrients like folate and iron, but lack inclusion of optimal forms and/or doses of these and other key nutrients for pregnancy backed by modern evidence to support women’s health. With this, many women receive little nutritional advice (in this study we found that nearly 80% of women reported receiving little to no nutritional advice from their OBGYN) and are left to do their own nutritional research in a category that’s crowded with misinformation.
We need more evidence to better understand the current state of prenatal nutrition and whether there are differences in nutritional status among women taking differing prenatal vitamins. So, we invested in a clinical research study to help us begin to address this important question.
What Did We Find?
We studied 235 pregnant women living in or near 7 cities across the US, and compared blood levels of nutrients (indicators of nutrient status!) by the type of prenatal they were taking — the ‘Needed Prenatal Multi Supplement group’ vs the ‘Standard Prenatal group’.
*In this study, “Standard Prenatal” was defined as a prenatal supplement containing folic acid, rather than another form of folate like methylfolate. These “standard prenatal” vitamins are those which are most often recommended by providers and purchased in this life stage, and therefore represent what many US women are receiving.
We found that women taking the Needed Multi Prenatal had significantly higher blood levels of key nutrients for pregnancy including Vitamin D, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin, Vitamin B12, Vitamin K2, and Selenium, compared to the women taking the standard prenatal. Now, we recognize that higher or more does not always mean better, and we were also mindful of healthy lower and upper levels for nutrients. With this, the group of women taking the Needed Multi Prenatal fell within healthy ranges for these nutrients.
Additionally, when we compared levels of nutrients in the blood in each prenatal vitamin group, we found that only the group of women taking the Needed Multi Prenatal fell within sufficient ranges for Vitamin D (>40 ng/mL) and Vitamin B6 (>5 ng/mL).
Finally, we found that there was a relationship between the type of prenatal vitamin women were taking and nutritional status of vitamins D, B6, selenium, and zinc. A significantly higher proportion of women in the Standard Prenatal group had blood levels of all four nutrients which fell below sufficient ranges for pregnancy, compared to women taking a Needed Multi Prenatal.
Why Does This Matter?
Let’s dig deeper into the key nutrient, vitamin D. Previous research has found that the majority of pregnant women have inadequate intakes of nutrients like vitamin D, and these shortfalls remain despite taking a prenatal vitamin. So, a finding that the group of women taking the Needed Multi Prenatal had significantly higher levels of vitamin D, and that only the Needed group fell in sufficient ranges for blood levels of vitamin D–is striking. Vitamin D is a key nutrient for pregnancy and supports a healthy immune system, strong bones and teeth, and the absorption of key perinatal nutrients, like calcium and phosphorus.
Key Takeaways
In this study, we compared nutritional characteristics of 235 pregnant women across the US and found that women taking the Needed Multi Prenatal had significantly higher blood levels of key nutrients for pregnancy including vitamin D, vitamin B6, Riboflavin, vitamin B12, vitamin K2, and selenium, compared to the women taking the standard prenatal. Our results also indicated that the Standard Prenatal group had a significantly higher percentage of women falling below sufficient ranges for blood levels of vitamin D, vitamin B6, selenium, and zinc, compared to women taking the Needed Multi Prenatal.
This study contributes to the growing body of evidence to suggest that the standard prenatal vitamin is not cutting it.
