Essential Guide to Choosing the Best Prenatal Vitamin for You & Your Baby
Medically Reviewed by Dr. Parris Kidd

Congratulations!

Whether you’re planning to have a baby, are currently pregnant, or have already delivered a bundle of joy, you’re entering an exciting new chapter of your life. While it’s normal to feel anxious about bringing a new life into the world, there are many ways to improve your health and the health of your baby…before, during and after the pregnancy.

Start Protecting Your Future

The best way to safeguard the future is to plan for it. For your sake, and the sake of your baby, make sure your behaviors and choices are healthy ones. After all, your life isn’t just about you, it’s about your future descendants too.

Epigenetics, a branch of genetics, has taken the field of science by storm over the past 20 years. Epigenetic means “above or on top of the gene.” It refers to the startling discovery that your habits, emotions, and environment can turn on or off certain genes, making illness more or less likely to afflict you, your children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren.

It’s mainly through epigenetics that immediate environmental factors like diet, stress, toxins can affect the activity of the genes that are passed to your offspring and beyond. This makes it extremely important for those seeking to start a family to get the right nutrition from the start. Nutrients provided by a healthy diet and science-based dietary supplements can help ensure epigenetic benefits for mother and baby. Research studies² epigenetics and the long-term benefits of prenatal care on both the mother’s and baby’s health.

But even considering epigenetics, your body needs vitamins, certain minerals, and some specific other nutrients to be healthy and to conceive and carry a child. Your body needs these substances to power the thousands of enzymes that make life energy and use this energy to maintain your reproductive organs, brain, heart and other tissues, particularly as you become pregnant and nurture another person inside of you.

Another study³ explores how prenatal nutrition, including dietary supplements, can shape the epigenome of the developing fetus, impacting the child’s future health outcomes. Better nourished mothers have healthier babies with well-developed brains. BrainMD did considerable research to develop a combination of nutrients that are essential for your and your baby’s health while being safe and extremely well-tolerated. We put together a clean, sugar-free, gluten-free formula called Smart Prenatal that you will appreciate.

Build Your Baby’s Brain Reserve

Brain reserve is the functional cushion of healthy brain tissue that helps us deal with the unexpected stresses that come our way. The more brain reserve we have, the more resilient we are in times of trouble. The less we have in reserve, the more vulnerable we are. This is even more important for both mother and baby during and after pregnancy. Smart ingredients help ensure healthy brain reserve.

Since many factors can increase or decrease our brain reserve, babies can begin life at very different levels of reserve. For example, considerable research shows that if a mother is exposed to environmental toxins, contaminated foods, negative lifestyle factors such as cigarette or marijuana smoke, alcohol drinks, or constant emotional stress while she is pregnant, may affect a baby’s brain reserve level.

Conversely, if a mother gets exercise, eats a healthy diet, avoids toxins, and takes a well-formulated prenatal dietary supplement, she’s way more likely to have a fully developed baby with ample brain reserve.

Anything that harms the brain can decrease its reserve. Here are some examples:

• Chronic stress can kill brain cells, particularly in the memory centers (hippocampi).
• Blows to the head, concussions, or other brain injuries should be taken very seriously.
• Poor diet is linked to deficiencies of vitamins and minerals that impair the brain.
• Environmental toxins such as lead, pesticides, artificial ingredients in cosmetics and other personal use products can be terribly destructive to brain cells.
• Anything that decreases blood flow or oxygen delivery to the brain, such as lack of sleep, sleep apnea, smoking or too much caffeine, can steal from your brain’s reserves.

The exciting news is that you can support your baby’s brain reserve by supporting your own. One of the best ways to accomplish this is with prenatal vitamins designed from the considerable scientific research available.

Why Are Prenatal Vitamins Important?

The extraordinary, miraculous process of carrying a baby creates a dramatically greater need for nutrients in the mother, both during and after pregnancy. Mothers therefore have a greater need to pay attention to their nutrition. It’s important to eat a healthy and balanced diet to support these needs, but studies such as the iconic NHANES from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document that nutritional deficiencies are widespread. A supplement designed specifically for pregnant and lactating women helps ensure that you get the much greater supply of nutrients you and your growing baby needs.

Smart Prenatal was specifically designed to support both mother and baby through this entire process. Its ingredients were painstakingly selected for purity, efficient absorption and optimal utilization by the brain and other organs. The BrainMD team did considerable research to develop a combination of nutrients that are essential for your and your baby’s health while being safe and extremely well-tolerated.

Drawing on our extensive experience with human development, form, and function, we put together a very clean formula with meaningful amounts of the nutrients that both mother and baby need. Being BrainMD, we also triple-checked the research to put necessary emphasis on brain health and development as we formulated this breakthrough supplement.

Choosing the Best Prenatal Vitamin

Choosing the best prenatal vitamin can feel overwhelming, given the variety of options available. To make the right choice, it’s essential to look for key nutrients that support both maternal and fetal health. A high-quality prenatal should contain essential vitamins and minerals like folate (preferably as methylfolate) as highlighted in this study¹ for being crucial for baby’s health, vitamin D, iron supplements (if recommended by your healthcare provider), and omega-3 fatty acids. Look for a formula that includes methylated B vitamins, which are easier for your body to absorb and utilize, especially if you have genetic variations that affect folate metabolism.

Additionally, purity and safety are vital. Select a prenatal vitamin free from artificial colors, flavors, preservatives, and allergens like gluten, dairy, and soy. An evidence-based formula that prioritizes brain and overall health can provide lasting benefits for both mother and child.

At BrainMD, we understand the importance of high-quality nutrients for expectant mothers. That’s why we created Smart Prenatal, a carefully formulated, science-backed prenatal vitamin. Our formula includes 28 essential ingredients like methylfolate, methylcobalamin (B12), choline, lutein, and zeaxanthin to support healthy brain and body development. With its high-purity ingredients and thoughtful design, Smart Prenatal offers optimal nourishment for both mom and baby, without any unnecessary additives.

How is Smart Prenatal Different?

The ingredients in BrainMD’s Smart Prenatal represent the most advanced scientific research on the nutritional requirements of mother and baby during pregnancy and after birth. This high-quality formula is for mothers who want to make certain their nutrition supports their baby’s developing brain, eyes, and heart, along with all their other organs.

We also carefully selected the ingredients in this formula for their superior safety of use, not only during the pregnancy period but postpartum as well, to promote the adequate nutrient content of breast milk during the lactation period.

Smart Prenatal includes all 13 vitamins in their most active forms, including folate (as methylfolate), which is better utilized by mother and baby than the synthetic folic acid. The formula includes the methylcobalamin form of vitamin B12, which is essential for methylfolate to work at its best.

Smart Prenatal contains a total of 28 crucial ingredients, including 9 essential minerals and “conditionally-essential” nutrients such as choline, coenzyme Q10, boron, lutein and zeaxanthin. These last two are known to be crucial for healthy eye development, but new research indicates they are also involved in healthy brain function.

Smart Prenatal uses only the purest available ingredients—those best proven for safe and effective utilization. It’s loaded with nutrients that support, promote and enhance healthy brain and body development during pregnancy and breastfeeding. And it doesn’t have any herbs that are questionable for the vulnerable developing baby.

Are Herbs Good for Pregnant Women?

Herbs that can benefit an adult woman may not necessarily benefit a developing child. This formula prioritizes nutrients that human cells naturally and routinely employ to promote healthy embryonic development and growth. This supplement was formulated to rule out any possibility of unwanted adverse reactions that would detract from the optimal health of the baby as well as the mother.

Can Mothers Who Have Allergies Take Smart Prenatal?

Absolutely. The BrainMD team has certified that Smart Prenatal is free of gluten, sugar, yeast, dairy, corn, eggs, and any artificial colors or flavors. Take this supplement according to the specific Suggested Use on the label.

What About Omega-3s?

Due to technical limitations, it isn’t possible to effectively combine omega-3s with such a large variety of powder ingredients without it degrading for a brief period of time. We highly recommend most mothers to complement Smart Prenatal with BrainMD’s Omega-3 Power, which supplies the high intakes of EPA and DHA both mother and baby need. Getting appropriate levels of EPA and DHA during pregnancy and breastfeeding is essential for the long-term development and health of your baby’s brain.

Do Pregnant Mothers Need Extra Iron?

It’s true that many pregnant women can benefit from an iron supplement. However, too much iron during pregnancy can be very harmful, so it’s best to have a physician conduct the appropriate testing before prescribing iron supplements. But also, BrainMD doesn’t combine iron with certain other active ingredients in a dietary supplement, since the iron atom is so highly reactive it can potentially generate harmful “free radical” toxins. BrainMD strongly recommends iron supplements be taken as a single iron ingredient.

When Should a Mother Take Smart Prenatal?

Since Smart Prenatal is safe to take before, during and after pregnancy, women can start taking them anytime before pregnancy. Many of the ingredients in this combination also promote healthy conception. The mother is well advised to continue supplementation all the way through postpartum until at least the end of breastfeeding.

Smart Prenatal is a uniquely high-quality, pre-and-postnatal supplement that’s nutritionally optimized to promote healthy brain and body while being safe for both mom and baby. For our full list of brain-directed supplements, visit us at BrainMD.

References:

¹Crider, K. S., Bailey, L. B., & Berry, R. J. (2019). Folic acid food fortification—its history, effect, concerns, and future directions. Nutrients, 13(5), 1456. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13051456

²Fleming, T. P., Watkins, A. J., Velazquez, M. A., Mathers, J. C., Prentice, A. M., Stephenson, J., … & Barker, M. (2018). Origins of lifetime health around the time of conception: Causes and consequences. The Lancet, 391(10132), 1842-1852. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)30312-X

³Custodero, C., Tarsitano, M. G., & Cardinali, V. (2021). The influence of diet and supplements on the prenatal epigenome and health of offspring. Nutrients, 13(1), 219. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13010219

Meet Our Expert

Dr. Parris Kidd

Dr. Parris Kidd, Ph.D., is a pioneering authority in nutritional medicine with a background in zoology and cellular biology from UC Berkeley. His work includes influential research on brain nutrients like PS and GPC, award-winning supplement formulations, and extensive publications. Formerly Chief Science Officer at leading supplement companies, Dr. Kidd is widely respected for his contributions to nutritional science and his commitment to integrity.