Unbeknownst to most pregnant women and even their doctors, there are prenatal vitamin alternatives that may optimize your baby‘s development to a greater degree than your current prenatals. Even better, at least a few of these options won’t take any more effort, time, or cost than your current prenatals.

Your Prenatals May Be Missing Many Ingredients

In his book, The Homeostasis Protocol, health educator Blake Sawyer suggests that 95% of vitamins on the market today are isolated synthetic vitamins that have been stripped of their enzymes, phytonutrients, secondary compounds, macronutrients, and cofactors. In Eat, Move, and Be Healthy, world renowned health coach Paul Chek discusses the fact that there are up to 10,000 secondary nutrients already discovered in plants. Intuition tells most of us what science continues to find: we obtain a lot more from our food supply than just the 50 nutrients listed on the side of your vitamin bottle. In just the last two decades, our scientists have not only uncovered additional nutrients, but entire classes of additional nutrients in our food supply. It is likely that there are many more secondary or even tertiary nutrients yet to be classified. Isn’t it probable these nutrients are needed for optimal prenatal health?

Most vitamins today are made with profits first in mind, rather than health. If you look on the label, you’ll find your prenatal contains about 50 different vitamins and minerals. Clever marketing often suggests they are “100% Natural.” But most prenatal vitamins are processed with chemicals, synthetically derived, and missing quite a few ingredients. What about the other 9,950 secondary nutrients?

Synthetic Prenatals May Steal Nutrients from You and Your Baby

In “Real or Synthetic: The Truth Behind Whole-Food Supplements,” Doctor Daniel Chong states “If parts of your processed prenatal vitamin are missing, those missing parts will be taken from your body's stored supply.” This means, potentially, that every time you ingest those 50 vitamins and minerals without the additional 9,950 secondary nutrients, the body must actually scramble its own secondary nutrients in order to balance the system. Many years of evolution have taught the pregnant body to utilize vitamins as they appear in “true food” not as isolated concoctions. Today’s pregnant mom has already been forced to muster her nutrient reserves for a growing baby. Isolated vitamins may place additional demands on those nutrients. Might your baby’s nutrient supply be at risk?

Your Prenatal May Act Similar to a Toxic Drug

Doctor Chong’s article sites studies showing that the body accepts isolated and synthetic viatmins like foreign substances that force themselves around your body, or drugs. Of course, any “foreign substance” may be toxic to the body and unborn baby on some level, but today’s definitions of drugs all come with known side effects. Just like those pharmaceutical drug commercials that spend half the commercial speed-reading the required list of side effects that “may” affect you by taking their “isolated synthetic” drug, “isolated synthetic” vitamins may act very similar.

Imagine for a moment that your computer is like your pregnant body. Taking isolated synthetic prenatals is like uploading your computer with an incomplete version of Microsoft Windows and assuming it will know how to make sense of it. It may not. Your body systems are looking for programs (foods and supplements) in forms that are highly recognizable, like nature’s true foods. The more often you upload incomplete and altered programs (synthetic vitamins), the more often you may risk susceptibility to complications, or viruses, just like your computer.

Synthetic Prenatals May Require Detoxification?

The human body must detoxify foreign invaders like viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens, including man-made artificial chemicals. Since synthetic isolated vitamins are man-made versions, the body’s innate foreign detection system may actually attempt to detoxify portions of it. This is how reactions to other foreign substances occur, like secondhand smoke. Homeostasis Protocol discusses how the “molecular rotation” of synthetic vitamins is altered, rendering the vitamin a cause for “malnutrition.”  Why put your baby under additional unnecessary stress?

Considered the bible of true-food wisdom, nutrition researcher Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions reports studies showing that synthetic vitamins are often harmful compared to their “true food” counterparts.

•Synthetic Vitamin A from supplements can be toxic, causing hair loss, drying of mucous membranes, irritability, menstrual abnormalities, and birth defects. However, high levels of natural Vitamin A have no toxic effects.

•Synthetic betacarotene given to smokers actually increased their risk of cancer, while the natural forms found in fruits and vegetables are protective.

•Synthetic Vitamin B1 derived from coal tar did not cure the disease, beriberi, in Korean prisoners-of-war but rice polishings with natural vitamin B complex did.

Just as disturbing, if you ask your vitamin manufacturer what the raw ingredients of your vitamins are, The Homeostasis Protocol advises that you may not like the answer. Here are some possibilities:

•Coal tar derivatives (like what’s stuck in a cigarette smoker’s lungs)

•Petroleum based chemicals (known central nervous system depressants, carcinogens and respiratory irritants)

•Acetylene gas (used in chemical manufacturing)

•Toxic cow livers (no thank you)

•Human sewage (yuck)

How Did We Stay Healthy before Prenatals?

Our ancestors used certain Super-Food supplements for a select few: athletes preparing for competition, warriors preparing for battle, and women preparing for pregnancy.

Finding and preparing traditional Super-Foods, like grass-fed liver, cod liver oil, and organic free range eggs (especially the yolk) is not too difficult. Grass-fed liver may be hard to find, but is often inexpensive. Cod liver oil is easy to find and take, as it comes in capsules. Organic grass-fed eggs are becoming more readily available as well. All three of these Super-Foods can be found at your local health food store.

Eating these Super-Foods along with an unprocessed whole-food diet is the way healthy babies have been born throughout human history, free of new diseases of “unknown origin” like autism and Attention Deficit Disorders. A diet of true foods and Super-Foods is also the starting point of any sound nutritional program. 

Whole-Food Supplements may be a Solution

Whole-food prenatal supplements may be a powerful alternative to isolated synthetic prenatal vitamins. Whole-food supplements are grown through whole-foods, much like yogurt is grown. Since they are grown more like a food, they may contain most if not all of the missing secondary nutrients referred to by Coach Chek. They are more likely to be recognized and optimally utilized in your pregnant body, free of side effects.

What to Look for in Your Whole-Food Supplement

•Whole-Food Label—A “whole-food” supplement says so on the label. This means they have only naturally occurring and unchanged nutrients, in proportions that nature selects. (This has nothing to do with Whole Foods Grocery Store.)

•Recommended Daily Values—Whole-food supplements will often have lower doses. Isolated synthetics are able to cram high percentages into small capsules. Expect your whole food vitamins to often have a daily value (%DV) less than 100% per pill/capsule.

•Organic—You will find that many whole-food supplements are organically grown, as knowledgeable companies strive to remove all forms of pesticide and chemical toxicity from your pregnant body.

•Low Temperature Processing—Heat anywhere along the vitamin growing and extracting process can alter or destroy many secondary phytonutrients.

These whole-food supplements, especially when used in conjunction with an unprocessed true-food diet, are the safest and most beneficial prenatals of all. That’s how you grow a super baby.

References

1.Sawyer, Blake. The Homeostasis Protocol. Fredericksburg, TX. A Blake Sawyer Publication, 2008.

2.Chek, Paul. Eat, Move, and Be Healthy. San Diego, CA. A C.H.E.K. Institute Publication, 2004.

3.Chong, Daniel, ND. Real or Synthetic: The Truth Behind Whole-Food Supplements. Online. http://www.mercola.com Internet. 3-3-09.

4.Fallon, Sally. Nourishing Traditions. Washington, DC. New Trends Publishing, 2007.