Gagging on Prenatals!

They have vanilla coated prenatal vits. I would call and ask the dr to prescibe them. They helped me a lot and I also took them before bed time. This helped to not feel so yucky. Good luck!

This may sound stange, but have you ever tried taking the pill with juice or water through a straw? For some reason, this often helps the pills go down much easier. Good luck to you!

Hi Lucy, I had the same experiance, and that was with any type of vitamins that had a smell. Take them at niight before you go to bed with a spoonfull of applesauce, yogert, pudding, jello, whatever has a little thicker consistancy, I swear it works. Good Luck.

J.

i so feel you here!!! i wasnt able to take pre natals but my dr told me to go buy the flinstones complete and take 2 a day. and they have everything a prenatal has.

Dear Lucy,

It is great you are trying to take such great care of your baby. As pregnant women we try to watch what we eat and eliminate foods from our diets to protect our growing babies, plus take our vitamins. The Isotonic line of vitamins has a Prenatal vitamin that is in powder form that you mix with water and it tastes good too. The powder form mixed with water makes the solution isotonic with your body, meaning it is ready to be absorbed by your intestines very quickly. No having to digest and breakdown a pill. They also carry a form of Calcium that is isotonic and contains all the necessary minerals that helps the calcium be taken up by your body, like magnesium. Here are the links so you can read about these for yourself, the science and any frequently asked questions.

For Prenatal
http://www.marketamerica.com/kimkalin/index.cfm?action=sh...
For Calcium
http://www.marketamerica.com/kimkalin/index.cfm?action=sh...

I wish you the best during your pregnancy, it's a magical time.
K.

Rite Aid Pharmacy carries a prenatal that is significantly smaller and easier to swallow. I don't have the bottle for the name but it has a blue label and the tablets are pink. Sorry that I don't have the best details....

I would suggest crushing your pill into a powder and mixing it into some ice-cream, pudding, applesauce, or another "treat" and see if that works.

Hello Lucy -

I suggest getting a pill crusher to break the size of it down maybe you won't gage on it. Hope this helps - W.

I'm not a good pill taker to start with, but I was committed to getting my prenatals down. I found it helped to wash them down with juice rather than water...covering the flavor. I've actually taken that a level up and take an Emergen-c to wash my multivitamins down.

I had that problem also if you can find a good multi vitamin that has enough folic acid you can take those instead. That helped me.

I have that problem all the time! I am not pregnant. If I can't get the vitamin down the first time, I won't get it down. I take an adult chewable without dyes. Some Doctors recommend taking 2 Flintstone vitamins. Talk to your Doc and ask what they recommend.

Lucy
Wow, If I hadn't known better I would think I wrote this asking for advice. This sounds so much like me. I too gagged on my prenatals. I just would suck down a bottle of water and have a peanut butter cracker after. I also can't have milk products and took extra calcium supplements. And I too train horses (full time). My due date was also march 22 but I had my daughter on the 13 of march. I've never met anyone with so many simmularaties. funny. Good luck with your pregnancy.

Hi Lucy, congrats on your pregnancy! I too work with horses on a daily basis. I own a boarding facility, I also give riding/horsemanship lessons to kids. I wanted to share with you about Isotonix pre-natal vitamins. They are a powder based vitamin that you mix with water. Your body and your baby's body are going to absorb the nutrients more rapidly and completely. The pill form vitamins are not only hard to swallow, they may take up to four hours to dissolve into your system. They also may contain, coatings, fillers, binders, sugars, which are not any help to you or your baby. With the Isotonix, the nutrients are passed directly to the small intestine and rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream. I have lots more info on the Pre-Natals as well as other supplements on my web portal www.mymalltoshop.com Good luck with the pre-natals and the best to you, your husband and baby! If you have any questions please call me ###-###-#### my email is ____@____.com Thanks, M.

I had the same problem...try switching to a different prenatal. There are many different brands and they all taste different.

I had the same problem when I was pregnant with the standard pink chalky vitamin but then I switched to one called prima care (I think) it's a purple gel coated pill, still big but goes down so much easier that I didn't have anymore problems, maybe your doctor can recommend a different pill for you to try, many offices have samples Oh I just remembered I also had some pills from a health food store that were called Healthy Moms and are smaller but I think you take 2 twice a day. Those were really easy to take.

Hi, Lucy. I have problems taking some pills, too. I have found that taking them with food helps; usually a banana or other soft fruit. Mixing the pill with fruit makes it go down so much easier for me. Hope this helps.

Hi Lucy,

I couldn't take prenatals during either of my pregancies because of the gag reflex, although I tried! I actually broke out into a horrible skin rash because they were just too strong for my system. I ended up eating really well- lots of organic, green leafy veggies, as well as lots of salads. Every night we had at least 2 if not 3 vegetables AND salad with peppers, celery, cucumber, etc. I ate oatmeal for breakfast along with fruit. Lunch was more like snacking on healthy foods. If you eat well and do some research as to the best foods for you to eat, you should be fine without taking the prenatals!
Good luck!
C.

OOOOOH! Don't let the doctors hide this incentive from you...they have...*drum role* chewable grape prenatal vitamins! They work great. I realized it was the size of the prenatal pills. I had even tried cutting them in 1/2 and even that didn't work. Also, if you are concerned about morning sickness, the doctor could prescribe an anti-nausea pill for you. Congrats on the pregnancy! :D *hug*

Lucy,
I was sick throughout my entire prengancy and did not take any prenatals because they would come right up. I gave birth to a healthy full term baby girl!!! She was 9lbs, 14oz! When I could eat, I would make sure it was nutritious. I stayed away from 90% of the junk food. I do not believe that prenatals are that important if you can eat a healthy diet. Best of luck.
M.

I also had this problem when I was pregnant with my first child. I was taking some type of natural prenatals that my chiropractor gave me. Not only were they the size of horse pills, but I couldn't keep them down, so I quit taking them. For my second and thrid pregnancies, my ob gave me a prescription for pre-natals and that made all the difference. They have a vanilla flavored coating and also contain a stool softener, which during the first trimester was helpful (sorry TMI). During my second pregnancy they cost me about $25/ month @ Walmart w/ my insurance, but my third pregnancy they were only $4/month. I also took them at bedtime, never had any problems, and still take them since I'm breastfeeding. Hope this helps, have a great day!

A few quick tips...

I always took mine right before going to sleep at night when I was the least gaggy and nauseous. If I took them in the morning I would gag on them.

Try a pill splitter and cut them in half.

Carbonated drinks are supposed to help. I've heard the fizz helps open your esophagus. I could never swallow pills until I was 25 (I know, embarrassing). This was a tip I was told by my father-in-law who always had a hard time swallowing pills. Also, I found bottled drinks made it easier because of the way it made me swallow and force the drink/pill back.

If you still can't handle them, try chewable vitamins or a supplement drink (e.g. Boost, Carnation Instant Breakfast, etc.) and taking folic acid on it's own. Folic acid is key and protects against certain birth defects. I started drinking Carnation Instant Breakfast (my doctor's recommendation) every day when I had lost my job half way through my pregnancy and could barely eat from the stress and nausea. Funny thing is that I started to crave it and found it SO refreshing each morning. I don't enjoy it now, however.

Congrats on your pregnancy!! Enjoy every minute of it. :-D

My older sister and I both took flinstones or gummy vites at the adult dose instead of prenatals for much of our pregnancies for the same reason. We have five children between the two of us, and all of them were born healthy and whole. Hers are in middle school now, and they're smart as whips! I had to take 4-5 gummy vites to get the adult dose. Yummier too!

Hi
I know you've already gotten a lot of responses, but it seem like most of them were about how to take the vitamin. Are you aware that 90% of that vitamin will not even be absorbed by your body? Your body has a gag reflex for a reason. Listen to it. DON'T TAKE THE VITAMIN! All it is doing is clogging up your liver. There are so many studies done on how ineffective vitamins are. Get informed. Eat real food - whole grain(oats, brown rice, spelt, beans, lentils), green leafy veggies, lots of variety of fruit and other vegatables. If you must take a supplement find one that is liquid and made from whole food, free of dyes and fillers at least! You are doing neither you nor your baby any favors by taking that prenatal vitamin. Doctors don't study nutrition, therefore give no more weight to their opinion then you would give to a friend's. Anyway, something to think about. Have a great day.

1) Try capsules, if you've ben using pills ... swallowing and digesting and absorbing are easier.

2) These are probably not your problems if you are fine after you get them down ... but two potential pill-ingredients that can cause nausea (and it's SO polite of companies to put them in a pill a pregnant woman might be taking, NOT) are lactose and non-accessible forms of iron.

2A) If iron is a concern (it seems to be the primary concern after the folic acid early concern), take a capsule form with an easier-to-biologically access version of iron. I used Nature's Way and have solved a few other moms' nausea (and anemia) by recommending it (sometimes over the non-accessible pill that their OB told them to use : P ). There are also some naturopathic liquid iron supplements that are suppsosed to be super-bio-accessible etc etc and I've heard good things about them, but the capsules set me up, so I never followed up myself (ads are in natural-living and especially natural-health magazines).

3) I also think that a balanced diet is the primary concern, and the pills are a safety net, rather than being (as society often implies) of primary concern. I knew I wasn't getting enough iron (because I craved chocolate like CRAZY--I mean, normally I crave chocolate, but when pregnant ... !!!), so I supplemented iron. But if you are healthy, with good energy levels, and (if you have them done) your bloodwork/pee samples are coming back good ... don't worry about it. Remember that the dietary guidelines and establishing studies were developed during the period when we had just urbanized (removed from fresh food) our population and reestablished a working class (not enough money for good food), and then we promptly got high on the horse about chemicals and used things like DDT for a while, and then we got financially flush and the junk food took over ... for sure the 20th c saw some really horrendous nutrition across a large part of the population (and resultant growth deficiencies, in and out of the womb) ... but we're getting the poisons out of our food, we're getting more kinds of food more available, and we're more aware of nutrition now ... probably a lot of the "science" is simply outdated. (Like the "average adult size" numbers from the 40's (when people were tightening their belts and most men were in the military), which they still used until about 10 years ago to design seats for airliners ... that is why people who are average now overflowed the seats! I think this also applies to some of the measures of babies ... like half of my friends had babies that were over the 90th percentile on head-size, and we received pressure to test our perfectly healthy babies for hydrocephalus ... if half the babies are in the top 10%, how does THAT work? Well, the data charts were developed during the bad-food period, probably explains that!)

Lucy,
I recommend taking any of your vitamins with orange juice rather than water. It makes them much easier to swallow.
W.

Lucy,

Like you I was looking for a different prenatal for my pregnancy becauase of similar problems, plus the pills just seemed to be sitting in my tummy for hours and not be digesting. Then my Dr. introduced me to Reliv, a patent, dietary supplement that I could drink and use as my prenatal. Reliv made a world of differnce. Leg cramps went away, digestion improved. My body was getting the nurtition that it needed and was actually getting it to my cells and the baby. I had a wonderful birth and even recovered 3x as fast with this pregnancy compared to my last.

I own my own Reliv business so I can help you further if you would like. The best way to reach me is by phone: ###-###-####.

Best wishes.

i'd suggest just eating a really really super good diet, with lots of fresh raw organic fruits and vegetables, especially dark leafy greens for the folic acid and calcium. then you shouldn't need vitamins.

I had the same problem. My OB suggested, believe it or not... Flintstone vitamins... taking 2 has about the same "stuff" as your ordinary, expensive, pre-natal vitamins. Plus, they are much cheaper and taste a heck of a lot better!

Hi Lucy,
Please go to my website at www.cksharesjuiceplus.com and click on Science and the What the Health Professionals Say. This is many different fruits and veggies that have been juiced, dried with no sugar or salt and put in a capsule, chewable and gummie form. ALOT of research at well known Universities. Many Mothers have used this verses prenatals and have been very happy with the results.
The video clips by the doctors are only 30-4- sec. long.
I really hope you will take a minute to take a look.

Take care,
Cheryle :-)

Try coating them in honey before taking. That way you don't smell or taste anything but the honey. It is what I had to do when I was pregnant.

I couldn't take them my 2nd pregnancy....I actually threw up every time....my midwife and I figured my body didn't need them and just tried to maintain as healthy a diet as I could. I threw up the almost the entire time, or was at least seriously nauseaus. I feel for you!!!!~

Going a few days or so without the prenatal won't hurt you. Maybe take a day off and then try again. Keep up with the calcium because at least your getting something. In the meantime eat a balanced diet.
Do you think it is the size that makes you gag? Cut it in half or try a different brand. I had good luck with the target brand of prenatal.

Lucy
The only prenatal vitamin I could stomach while pregnant was
Rainbow Light Prentals. You can get them at a local healthfood store or order them online. They are whole-food based vitamins and have no coating on them at all. They dissolve easily and instantly. THey are large but easier on the stomach as they are derived from food. They are the only ones I didn't not hurl up or gag on.

I hope this helps! Good luck!
S.
Mama to 6 great kids!
Childbirth Educator, Doula
www.empoweredbirthing.net

Hi Lucy,
Prenatals are important because they contain folic acid which is important to a growing fetus. Your gag reflex is worst in the morning, try the evening. What helped me get them down: fill mouth w/ water, slip pill in (so you don't have to "feel" it, bend head down to ground (the pill will float to the back of your mouth) and swallow!
Congratulations and best of luck! B.

try mashing it up in brown sugar

Mash up the vitamins and mix them into your orange juice. When I wash in this phase of my pregnancy I had my only time of nausea.

Hi Lucy,
I also am a horse person/animal person. My sisters a vet so I think we may have alot in common. I rep for a Manufacturing company and would love to share with you our green products/shopping system. It's not only awesome for products like our prenatals which you'll love, I even make no harsh chemical fly-sprays from our cleaning products for my horses to keep them safe. It's really easy and affordable and I love helping people. If you would like to talk with me I would be open to share with you.

N. B
____@____.com

I found that taking calcium just out and out made me gag and feel sick during pregnancy, so I stopped. Luckily I was able to make up for it with cheese, yogurt, etc. You could try eating other non-dairy calcium-rich foods like fortified soy milk and broccoli for calcium instead. I also found that taking my prenatals, etc. before bed was much better. Some people suggest that Flinstones vitamins are easier to swallow for pregnant women than prenatal vitamins, but I'd talk to your doctor about this first before you switch. Congratulations and good luck!

Lucy,

I never got to the point of gagging, but I was incredibly nauseous the whole time I was taking my prenatals with my son. On my own, I stopped the prenatals and started taking the children's Flintstone Chewables and that was what worked for my.

I didn't get the confirmation that that was acceptable until I changed my OB when I was 8 months pregnant. That's a whole different story and tale of frustration. The short of it is that I was on DSHS and found out when I was 8 months along that the doc I'd been seeing didn't deliver any of her patient's babies. I was pissed to say the least and found a different OB/GYN.

When I got pregnant with my daughter I asked our family doc about the Flintstones and she said it was fine.

Good luck and Congrats ahead of time!
Melissa

hi Lucy, I am glad that you are concerned about getting good nutrition for a healthy pregnacy and baby! I know about a whole food supplement that comes in capsule,chewable, gummy and protein powder form (for smoothies). It gives you the nutritional equivalent of 15 servings of fruits and vegetables and 2 whole grains! You can check out my website at www.dblairjuiceplus.com for information. Research is showing that what we need is whole food nutrition, not so much the isolated vitamins and minerals found in prenatals and multivitamins. Juice Plus is backed by very credible research and has been shown to be beneficial during pregnancy! Good luck with the next few months.
Sincerly, D. B

Hi Lucy! I hate taking pills too (especially big ones like the prenatals). My Dr. ended up perscribing me a chewable prenatal. With my insurance I only paid $5 per month for these. I would chew them up and swallow while gulping down water (or juice or whatever). Ask you Dr. if you are interested. If for some reason your Dr. has never heard of them I'll try to find out the name of them (been a couple years since I've taken them) and get back to you. Good luck and hang in there. Oh...I also agree with the other moms. I had to stop taking for awhile due to constipation and my baby was perfectly healthy. I've heard that the prenatals are most important the first few weeks (before you even know you are pregnant) and early on.

Take liquid prenatals. You can find them at many stores. They are not the most tasty, but they go down easy and give you what you and the baby need.

You can try taking them at night. I take them before bed. This is a big help for me. Does your prenatal have an unpleasant smell? With my first pregnancy I switched to Duet DHA a prescription prenatal. The over the counter prenatals from health food stores were making me throw up. Hope this helps.