Fourth Trimester Podcast Episode 102: Prenatal Vitamins 101: Nourishing You and Your Baby-to-Be – with functional medicine dietitian and GutPersonal Founder Bridgitte Mallinson
Right off the bat we’re going to remind our listeners and readers that it’s important to work with a medical professional on what is right for you and your body. We’re excited to share valuable information with you on this episode about prenatal vitamins and their important benefits.
“Just know that you deserve to feel amazing. And supporting your body with high quality supplements is a very easy way to do that.”
— Bridgitte Mallinson, MS, LDN, RDN
Prenatal Vitamins 101
In this episode of Fourth Trimester Podcast, functional medicine dietitian Bridgitte Mallinson joins us to explore the essentials of prenatal vitamins. She illuminates the purpose of various supplements, emphasizing their critical role in nurturing both maternal and fetal health throughout pregnancy.
Bridgitte explains which vital nutrients expectant mothers should prioritize and highlights red flags to watch out for when selecting prenatal supplements, empowering listeners to make informed choices tailored to their unique needs.
Listen to the full episode to learn all about:
- What prenatal vitamins do
- What nutrients to look for and why
- Any red flags to watch out for when selecting a prenatal
- How to incorporate prenatals into your routine
- Taking vitamins after birth during postpartum and while nursing
Prenatal Vitamins Ingredients
Prenatal vitamins are important for supporting both the mother’s and developing baby’s health. They are essential before, during, and after pregnancy to ensure the mother is replenished with nutrients the baby has absorbed.
For reference, here are some of the key terms and supplements mentioned on the program. This list does not represent an exhaustive set of prenatal vitamin ingredients, but rather highlights some of the key ingredients discussed on the show.
Vitamin B6
Helps reduce morning sickness and nausea during pregnancy.
Methyltetrahydrofolate (naturally occurring form of Folate vs folic acid which is synthetic)
Recommended over folic acid due to better absorption and utilization by individuals with the MTHFR genetic mutation. Vital for the creation of the baby’s spine and overall development.
Methylcobalamin (Vitamin B12)
Ensures proper B12 absorption and utilization, which is critical for overall health and energy. And, B12 supplements are believed to help to prevent spina bifida and other spinal and central nervous system birth defects during pregnancy.
Iron
Essential for preventing anemia, important for both the mother’s and baby’s oxygen transport. Should be taken separately from calcium and personalized to the individual’s need.
Calcium
Critical for bone health but should not be taken with iron due to absorption issues (see link above).
Choline
Important for baby’s brain development, especially in the third trimester.
Magnesium
Helps to prevent constipation and insomnia. Magnesium Glycinate is particularly recommended for its effective absorption.
Fish Oil
Supports baby’s brain development and can be beneficial postpartum as well, particularly if breastfeeding.
Vitamin D
Supports bone metabolism and is essential during pregnancy, with requirements often increasing in each trimester.
Probiotics
Important for maintaining a healthy gut and vaginal microbiome. Specific strains can reduce Group B strep, which is important for pregnancy and delivery.
Vitamin C
Enhances iron absorption when taken together. Eating an orange while taking an iron supplement is an easy way to support iron absorption.
Each of these supplements plays a particular role in ensuring optimal health for the mother and the developing baby during the lead-up to conception, pregnancy, and the postpartum period. Some are taken for specific health outcomes, like choline for brain development or B6 for nausea, while others are for maintaining general health and preventing deficiencies, such as iron for anemia or probiotics for gut health.
Special offer for our listeners
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Full Show Notes
- Introduction and Podcast Theme [00:00:00 – 00:00:58]
- Guest Introduction – Bridgitte Mallinson [00:00:58 – 00:03:19]
- Bridgitte’s Fourth Trimester Experience [00:03:19 – 00:05:55]
- What Prenatal Vitamins Do. Taking Prenatal Vitamins Before, During, After Pregnancy [00:05:55 – 00:11:23]
- What Nutrients To Look For in Prenatal Vitamins and Why [00:11:23 – 00:17:52]
- Red Flags To Watch For. Addressing Common Concerns & Side Effects of Prenatal Vitamins [00:17:52 – 00:29:01]
- Incorporating Prenatal Vitamins into Daily Routine and Probiotics’ Importance [00:29:01 – 00:37:45]
- Prenatal Vitamins Post-Birth Closing Thoughts [00:37:45 – 00:44:02]
About Bridgitte Mallinson, MS, LDN, RDN
Bridgitte Mallinson is a functional medicine dietitian, business mentor & the founder and CEO of GutPersonal, a supplement company that empowers everyone to eliminate gut issues FOR GOOD through a personalized approach.
After healing a lifelong struggle with her gut, Bridgitte has spent a decade studying functional medicine and nutrition as a registered functional dietitian. She became wildly interested in building and scaling her businesses in the pandemic and succeeded in building not one- but TWO 7-figure + companies in under 3 years!
She launched GutPersonal as her way to change the world in a BIG way. With a big vision to empower women to improve their health & furthermore – wealth. GutPersonal is female-founded with mostly female investors.
Selected links
Connect with Bridgitte Mallinson gutpersonal.com | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok
Learn more How To Avoid Anemia (Before & After Pregnancy) | Researchers have finally discovered the cause of morning sickness in pregnancy | Postpartum Soups and Stews Collection | Your Perfect Birth Plan Template (a.k.a. Birth Intentions Document)
Connect with Fourth Trimester Facebook | Instagram | About & Contact
Episode Transcript
Sarah Trott: [00:00:00] Hey Listeners! We’re always excited to share valuable information with you on the Fourth Trimester Podcast. As a reminder, everyone’s care requirements are different, so as always do consult with your medical care professional on what is right for you and your body.
Hi, this is Sarah Trott and welcome back to Fourth Trimester Podcast. I’m here with a special guest today, who I will introduce in a moment. Before I do, I’d like to remind everyone to go to your podcast app on your phone. Hit follow, subscribe to us on Instagram, follow us wherever you listen to your shows so you can get updated every time we have a new release.
Sarah Trott: [00:00:23] And today we have a really cool topic which is Prenatal Vitamins 101. Think of this as a primer on the best prenatal vitamins. We’re going to talk about what prenatal vitamins do, what nutrients to look for, and why. We’re going to talk about any red flags to watch out for when you’re selecting a prenatal. We’re going to talk about how to incorporate prenatals into your routine. And we’re going to talk about taking vitamins after birth. So during postpartum and while you’re nursing and why people may or may not want to do that.
Sarah Trott: [00:00:58] So without further ado, I’m going to introduce you to our special guest. Her name is Bridgitte Mallinson. She is a functional medicine dietitian. She’s a business mentor, and she’s the founder and CEO of GutPersonal, which is a supplement company that is designed for everyone to help eliminate gut issues. And as they like to say ‘eliminate your gut issues for good through a personalized approach’. And I like that. So I’m going to say it exactly.
Sarah Trott: [00:01:30] She’s also the mama of a sparkling baby girl, and she and I have been going back and forth talking about and prepping for this episode before and after her maternity leave. So this episode has been a long time coming, and it has some extra special meaning for Bridgitte as well, both as a business person and as a mother.
Sarah Trott: [00:01:50] And I would add that I am personally a big fan of Bridgitte’s products. I use them regularly and I’ve been feeling good and getting better sleep. I’ve tried the Miracle Worker and I’ve tried the Women’s Probiotic, and I just have to say, I’ve tried a lot of different things, and it’s great to find things that work for me. I’ve tried to be really careful because for some people, there can be dietary or other health considerations going on, and I’m certainly in that camp. So it’s always great to find something that works. So thank you for that, Bridgitte.
Sarah Trott: [00:02:25] And back to Bridgitte. So she spent a long time, I think around ten years or so as a nutritionist and a registered dietitian. And she started her own business only a few years ago, and it’s been hugely successful in a very short span of time mainly because she’s been able to transform her own battle with health and gut issues and translate that into solutions for other people, too.
Sarah Trott: [00:02:50] And amid all this, somehow she finds time to do business mentorship for women, talking about building the business and life of their dreams. That’s a whole other conversation we could have. But how cool is that? And also, I want to mention that I love that her company is female founded. We’ve had lots of female founders on the show. And it also has mostly female investors. So I love that. Welcome, Bridgitte. I’m so happy to have you on the program today.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:03:19] Thank you so much. I think you encompassed a lot of our mission already, and I’m just so excited to share with all the mamas, all the knowledge that I have so that they feel the most empowered and their journey of motherhood and feeling great in a female body.
Sarah Trott: [00:03:39] Love it and you are currently in the eye of the storm in your own fourth trimester, with an infant at home. And one of the traditions that we have on the show is to ask guests if they’d be willing to talk a bit about their own fourth trimester experience. So do you want to share a little bit about how your experience has gone, and anything you’d like to share with our listeners?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:04:01] I’d love to. So my daughter Lily was born in July. We’re recording this podcast in February. She’s six months old, and I have had, I mean, an incredible fourth trimester. But there’s also been a lot of identity shifts. I think a lot of new moms go through. I have A very positive outlook in life, and I think that serves me in a lot of ways.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:04:27] And I was just really excited to have a daughter so that I can show her that women can do it all. You know, I can be CEO of a company, I can be the breadwinner for my family. I can have her and be a really incredibly present and loving mom. I can be a great wife. I can be all the things. And before I gave birth to her, that’s what I was really intending and excited for. And I think in my fourth trimester, what has been challenging at times is trying to do it all. And what I’ve realized in my fourth trimester is, yes, I can be it all, but I don’t need to do it all, all the time. And what that allowed for is more support in my life.
So more support in terms of we have a postpartum doula who’s actually here at our house right now watching Lily who comes three days a week. And for me releasing that, I had to do it all, releasing some guilt for not being able to do it all. You know, I needed support if I was going to work full time and continue our mission at GutPersonal, then I needed more support. So it’s been some identity shifts and it’s been a lot of learning, but all very positive. And of course there’s been hard times, but it allows me to work through them. And in a big way.
Sarah Trott: [00:05:55] Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. And you’ve also been I think pretty open on other shows as well. You were talking about your own birth experience, and of course, everyone’s experience is different, but I think you were touching on something when we were just chatting before we started recording about how going through hard things can be really empowering. And everyone’s introduction to motherhood is different. Sometimes it’s a lot. I appreciate you sharing that.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:06:28] Yeah. You know, as a supplement company owner, I am very natural in how I live my life. And I had intended a very unmedicated birth. At one point, I realized that was not right for my body 48 hours in. And what was really empowering about that? And I’m just getting goosebumps as I share this, because I want this to be the main part of the message. What was really empowering was making a decision not because of an expectation, but because I was listening to my body. And I finally realized after having very strong contractions for 48 hours, I realized that the best thing I could do for myself, the most empowering, wonderful thing, was not putting my feet in the sand and saying, no, I’m going to go through this.
It was listening to my body and saying. Okay, it’s epidural time and for me that was the right decision in a very empowering one. and it allowed me to tune into my intuition, which I just think is moms. And you as a three time mom can probably speak to this for much longer than I can, but I just feel like as moms, especially in the fourth trimester, our intuition is like on steroids, which I just love. Like listening to your gut. Listening to your intuition has been so powerful in this fourth trimester.
Sarah Trott: [00:07:51] Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. We have an entire episode dedicated to self-trust. Why it matters, how important it is. And it’s important, even for individuals who aren’t parents, it’s just it’s sort of a human level thing. and the importance of it for sure is emphasized throughout pregnancy, birth, postpartum and parenting. So I love that. I love that you shared that.
The other thing I really like about what you just said is talking about changing expectations or being flexible in your expectations. Now we have a document. You can go to our website on fourthtrimesterpodcast.com. We have a template that people can use if they want – it’s a birth plan, but we actually call it a birth intentions document.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:08:39] I love that. That is. I love that. Where were you when I was creating that in July? Cause mine was, like, hard and fast birth plan. This will happen. This will not. This will happen. This will not. I love that intentions.
Sarah Trott: [00:08:54] Yes. The whole idea of being a little bit flexible can go a very long way. it’s true for your birth, and it’s also true for a lot in parenting, too. and be kind to yourself out there, mamas and dads and parents in general, and caregivers, be kind to yourself. Because if it doesn’t go the way you planned it to, it does not mean you’re failing. It gives you an opportunity for growth and some different ways of doing things, which is wonderful.
Sarah Trott: [00:09:23] So we are going to now shift gears a little bit. Let’s talk about prenatal vitamin 101. So the first thing that we were talking about reviewing is just the very high level basics. A lot of people will ask the question, what do prenatal vitamins even do?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:09:45] Yeah, prenatal vitamins are so important. And actually, for a very long stage, I think the word prenatal, we think we just need to be taking them during pregnancy. But a quick myth that I want to bust is that you really should be taking them a year before you get pregnant, during pregnancy, and probably a year postpartum. There are so many nutrients that are needed in very high amounts to create a baby. If you think about it, we’re creating life and our body needs a lot more support.
And so there’s a lot of things that are involved that B vitamins and choline and, and all these things that actually help a baby develop that we don’t get enough in our diet. And we can our what we get from nutrition, what we get from our diet is so much less nutrient dense than it used to be. And I know this because I test women’s nutrients all the time. And this is actually what helped me create an even better prenatal because I’m testing women’s nutrients and seeing, okay, here’s the research, what we need more of during pregnancy.
And when you’re trying to conceive and postpartum. But then also, I was looking at the data of my clients and saying, okay, they need more of this. So a prenatal is so incredibly important to not only support your body with actually making the baby, but then to support your own system and your energy and your own brain health. Everything. It’s so, so, so important.
Sarah Trott: [00:11:23] And so they’re critical for both the mom and the developing baby. And that’s interesting. I’ve heard different guidelines like, if you’re thinking about getting pregnant, shoot to take your prenatals about three months before – you’ve said a year. Yeah. And why is that? That’s time for the body to sort of absorb everything and store the nutrients required?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:11:46] Absolutely. So a lot of, like, a lot of problems and symptoms women have during pregnancy could be solved if they were not deficient in nutrients. A very specific thing that women struggle with is morning sickness and nausea. And that was actually something I struggled with a lot. And I wasn’t taking a multivitamin really for a long time before I started getting pregnant. It was about three months. And there were a lot of reasons why. I think with scaling a company, I wasn’t taking care of myself as well as I should have been.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:12:22] And I wasn’t thinking, actually, I truly wasn’t thinking about getting pregnant. My husband and I weren’t going to be trying and it was a surprise, so I wasn’t prepared. So I was really sick in my first trimester. One of the things, one of the nutrients that reduces morning sickness and nausea is vitamin B6. And so I started adding more of that in my first trimester.
And I’m thinking to myself, but why isn’t my prenatal have this in it? If we know 50mg of vitamin B6 is shown in research to reduce morning sickness, why wouldn’t my prenatal have it? And there’s a lot of different answers to that question. But my solution was, okay, well, I’m going to go start and create my own prenatal. And there are a lot of changes that I made. But it’s really important to get those nutrients in for a long time.
Sarah Trott: [00:13:17] Yeah, and give your body plenty of time to adjust. It sounds like. Yes. So that’s fascinating.
Sarah Trott: [00:13:23] We’re delving into an overview of what nutrients you should be looking for in Prenatals. I know people who have suffered from very severe nausea, there’s also some research on genetic, potentially genetic relationships between nausea and the body. So that’s sort of fascinating as well. I don’t know if you’ve seen that.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:13:48] Yeah. I think there’s other root causes too. I think genetics are always playing a role. And then it’s like if the environment turns them on or turns that genetic snip off. And then also gut health is huge, is wildly huge in nausea are you digesting your food properly? Do you have too much bad bacteria in your gut? So really, when I’m thinking about a post a prenatal plan before you get pregnant, if you’re taking your prenatal and then making sure everything is doing really great – you’re reducing stress, you’re checking out your gut health. That’s kind of like a preconception that I love to think about for people, whether it’s their first, their second or their third.
Sarah Trott: [00:14:31] Yeah. So true. And what else? Okay so B6 critical. What else is really important to be looking for in a prenatal vitamin. I’m trying to remember what mine had in it like folic acid iron calcium a lot of critical stuff.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:14:46] Oh my gosh. You just touched on some great things to start us off. Most people have a genetic snip called MTHFR. Most of us women about 60% to 70%. That means some people can’t actually use folic acid in the body, and it can actually act as a toxin in the body. And so some people need a different form of folate, which is Tetrahydro methylfolate. So you don’t need to remember that, but some people really need the correct form of that B vitamin.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:15:34] And then also B12 if you want to take a look at your current prenatal, if it says methylcobalamin, that’s really what you want as your form of B12. So when you’re thinking about nutrients, it’s not only the nutrients there are the vitamins there, but are they there in the correct form. So that’s something to be thinking about.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:15:56] And then also the relationship between iron and calcium is really important. Iron and calcium have to be taken separately. So calcium blocks iron absorption. And actually it was shocking to me. This is very well known. I learned this in undergrad. I say that because it’s shocking when you go to Whole Foods and you start looking at the prenatals, they always have iron and calcium. Calcium blocks iron absorption. So you’re actually not absorbing the iron at all. And so our prenatal doesn’t have any iron in it.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:16:33] Another reason to not put iron in a prenatal is that iron needs to be personalized. The dosing. So some of us are not iron deficient. And if we add more iron into the body when we’re not iron deficient it actually wreaks havoc on our gut and can increase bad bacteria in the body, which is not a good thing, especially if we think about Group B strep and everything like that. We don’t want to be affecting the gut in a negative way because we give our gut to our babies through our vaginal microbiome. so yeah, you want to make sure your prenatal just has calcium and then your iron should be personalized separately.
Sarah Trott: [00:17:13] So okay, so B6, B12 we talked about. We talked about calcium and iron being separate.
Sarah Trott: [00:17:19] By the way we have another great episode of if any listeners are interested in sort of a deep dive on iron and anemia, we have an episode about avoiding and treating anemia. So that’s an iron deficiency that can happen. and there’s a lot of great research out there about this. We also have really good recipes for lamb stew, things that are very iron rich and very important for women who are needing to increase those red blood cells. but sorry, go back to the folic acid thing again. You said the correct form to look for is called what?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:17:52] Methyltetrahydrofolate.
Sarah Trott: [00:17:54] Okay, we’ll put this in the article on fourthtrimesterpodcast.com as well. So you don’t have to scribble this down while you’re listening. We’ll put it in the article. But okay, so that’s a good one to look for. And then how would someone go about personalizing their iron? Would someone do blood work with their health practitioner?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:18:12] Absolutely. So you don’t only want to be looking at actually iron, you want to be looking at ferritin. Ferritin looks at long term iron storage. So sometimes actually if iron doesn’t come up deficient in the short term and they’re just running a basic iron panel, then you look at ferritin and it might come up low in a long term storage. So yeah, working with your OB or if you’re working with a functional medicine practitioner, we’ll look at more of a holistic view than just one level, which is really important.
Sarah Trott: [00:18:47] Yeah, it sounds like it. Any other nutrients to really look out for when you’re making those selections?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:18:54] Absolutely. So I go back to my Whole Foods prenatal or talking about Whole Foods prenatal, because just a quick story, I went while I was pregnant, I ran out of my prenatal and ours was still being formulated and tested. And so I went to Whole Foods and it was shocking. The prenatals that were there, one nutrient that was really low in all the prenatals that we know is so important is choline for baby’s brain development, especially in the third trimester, but really long term are all throughout pregnancy. Choline is really important. So you really want at least 150mg of choline. Some prenatals won’t have any choline at all, and ours has much more than that. just because it is so powerful for baby’s brain development.
Sarah Trott: [00:19:51] What would you say to someone who said, well, I get plenty of all my vitamins just through the food that I eat. I eat a great diet, really healthy. Is it going to hurt to take a prenatal vitamin? What’s the pros and cons?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:20:01] That is such a great question. So the first step to answering that question is that, a little bit, alluding to what I was saying earlier, food is so much less nutrient dense then it used to be.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:20:17] You know, our food’s coming from South America a lot. You know, I’m in Boston. There’s no produce being made really, in the winter. But let’s say you’re in Southern California and you’re getting all your produce locally. Our soil is so nutrient depleted. so you really only can answer that question if you’re doing nutrient testing on yourself. Now, that’s very in depth. It’s something we do with our clients and it’s like 11 pages long of your nutrient status.
So I could say to someone, even if you’re eating a great diet I’m a dietitian, I would love. And it’s so altruistic to think that we can get it all from our food, but from testing thousands of women, I know that’s just not true. Even the best eaters on the planet. And then secondarily with taking a prenatal or really any nutrients that are if there are any problematic, it’s really your fat soluble vitamins. So your vitamin A, D, E and K. And so we don’t put any in very high amounts in our prenatal for example, people can overdose on vitamin D and so we actually just have 1000 units of vitamin D.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:21:29] And that’s something that should be personalized to especially in the third trimester. Vitamin D plummets. So I really recommend getting your vitamin D tested every trimester. Vitamin D acts like a hormone in the body, so it’s very powerful when you’re growing a small human.
So yeah, in our prenatal, even though our prenatal is very robust, it’s six capsules per day. You take three with breakfast, three with lunch. You can’t really overdose a lot of the B vitamins. If you’re taking them in excess, you’ll pee out. But we’re very intentional with the levels.
You know, we do have a high amount of folate. That’s because we don’t absorb everything, even that’s in the supplement. So there’s no real worry. unless also you were taking another supplement with vitamin A, that’s where I just want to look at all the supplements you’re taking. And this really is your very complete multivitamin that you want to be taking alongside extra magnesium and a fish oil while you’re pregnant.
Sarah Trott: [00:22:31] Yeah, an extra iron, potentially.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:22:34] Potentially. Oh, absolutely. And I had to take extra iron as well. That’s a whole other episode. And like you said, you have a great episode on that. It sounds like I was very adverse to meat for a long time during pregnancy. And so, yeah, I got a little iron deficient, but it really helped to take a very personalized iron dose.
Sarah Trott: [00:22:58] You know, isn’t that surprising during pregnancy, how our sense of smell and our sense of taste really shifts? Not everyone, but certainly mine did. It was the first time in my life I ever liked sugar and sweets, and it was the last time I ever really liked it, which is this brief period of time.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:23:14] That’s so funny you say that because in my third trimester it’s 4th of July. And we were getting together with my family, and I wanted pie so bad. And my family is like, are you okay? Like, why are you jonesing for pie over some great steak? So I actually agree with that one for myself.
Sarah Trott: [00:23:36] Yeah, yeah. No. And it was brilliant too. And I was aware – I was like, this is the only time in my life I’m going to love eating a creampuff. So I’m going to go for it.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:23:43] Go for it. Yes.
Sarah Trott: [00:23:46] Well, I appreciate that answer because I think there is a tendency for people to think, well, if I’m eating a healthy diet and there’s different views on that. Yeah. But that’s a great answer. I appreciate it so much.
Sarah Trott: [00:24:00] And so when you’re thinking about, okay, so someone’s finding themselves pregnant, they’re thinking about prenatal vitamins. Great. Or they’re looking to get pregnant, and I’m ready to start taking them. We talked about thinking about individual needs. If someone can’t afford or doesn’t have access to the kind of testing that you’re talking about, do you have any guidance for them?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:24:22] In terms of figuring out a personalized supplement? Taking you know, our prenatal like I said, it’s six capsules per day and trans it’s $65. So it’s for some people an expensive supplement. Taking half the dose is better than nothing. I would rather you take half the dose of an ultra high quality prenatal, then go to CVS and take a $10 prenatal that’s not tested for heavy metals.
That’s really something that goes into the price of ours, is we make sure it is the lowest level of heavy metal testing. We use the strictest standards, and that costs money to us. You know, then that makes the supplement more expensive as the quality. So I would much rather someone who had restraints of they couldn’t do testing, just go on a great prenatal.
And then if further if they need to do half the dose, we still have enough folate in there. Folate is one of the most important nutrients, especially for the creation of the baby’s spine, for example, to do half the dose and then it’s $65 for two months and you’re still doing a really incredible thing for your body.
Sarah Trott: [00:25:37] Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. And then, I guess the simple way of putting this is what are the red flags? I don’t necessarily want to name and shame any brands or anything like that. However, if there’s someone who’s looking at the bottle, what would be something that says don’t take this.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:26:02] So I’m there with you, Sarah. I am someone who’s always cheering on other companies. And it was shocking to me the lack of quality in brands, actually quite infuriating. Infuriating because I believe women deserve the best, and I think there’s a lot of prenatals out there that have a lot of good marketing behind them. They have a lot of money behind them that are doing women an insane disservice. And marketing as you know, this is only what you need. You only need two capsules a day. And maybe there’s not a wide array of nutrients and vitamins. If you look at our nutrients panel, we have 20 plus vitamins and nutrients. I think one red flag is that it just has B vitamins, or it has ten or less vitamins and minerals in it. That’s a big red flag to me.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:27:04] And then if it has competing iron and calcium, you know they don’t really care about absorption. They just care about saying it has iron and calcium which we know we need during pregnancy, but they compete for absorption. Those are the biggest.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:27:20] And then I think something that’s more behind the scenes that you’d have to do a lot of digging in is are they doing third party heavy metal testing? You know, that’s something that the majority of supplement companies do not do. It increases the price of the product. So that’s why they don’t do it. They want to produce an inexpensive product.
And at the end of the day, my goal is the health of women. And if that means we have to send every single batch to the lab and that increases our price by $10, that’s what we’re going to do. We’re always going to do the right thing that improves health. And so it’s actually shocking how many companies don’t do testing. So you just need to make sure that if you’re taking a prenatal that they do do testing. So that’s what I’ll say about that.
Sarah Trott: [00:28:24] Okay. Is there a resource or a site or something that you recommend for people to go to if they’re considering something and they want to check? Does this brand do the background research on heavy metals?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:28:37] No, there’s Really not because they don’t have to say if they do research on it. Right. Like a company doesn’t have to say so there isn’t currently one. maybe in the future there will be.
Sarah Trott: [00:28:52] Maybe it’s the reverse. If a brand is talking about the fact that they do, then they do and they probably will talk about it because they’re spending money on doing that.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:29:01] Yes. That’s so brilliant. Absolutely. If they’re talking about third party testing, if they’re talking about heavy metals or prop 65 are the California guidelines. They’re very strict guidelines. If they’re saying they follow prop 65, that’s also a positive. But okay. I think it’s yeah, just really important to feel empowered. I think that’s what it all is all about. You know what I mean? that if you’re going to take something and you’re trying to support your body in improving health, that you’re actually doing that.
Sarah Trott: [00:29:31] Perfect. and then I wonder, are there any risks associated with taking prenatal vitamins or side effects that people should be aware of? Or, I mean, maybe things that are universal, but also things that may happen to just certain people and not others.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:29:47] One thing that you want to look out for is that or one thing you want to do is take it with food. So we have zinc in ours. If you take zinc on an empty stomach, you will feel nauseous to all hell. So definitely take it with food.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:30:04] And, I would say there’s a very small percentage of people, probably 5%, that have a genetic snip of MTHFR that are over methylated. And so if you take a lot of methylated B vitamins, you might feel more anxious. So just look out for that. I’ve had probably two clients ever in ten years that have felt more anxious on methylated B vitamins. and then there are other companies that are using other different forms. Pure Encapsulations is a great company that has an unmethylated version, but most people do much better on methylated, which is our company’s long name of folate. That’s what it means. It’s methylated.
Sarah Trott: [00:30:47] Yes. Which is the recommendation instead of the folic acid form, Correct?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:30:53] Yes.
Sarah Trott: [00:30:54] Yeah. Okay. And then is it possible to have other side effects? So you mentioned feeling nauseous. Sometimes people can report feeling constipated with taking supplements. I don’t know how that relates, but is that something you’ve heard of?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:31:10] It shouldn’t. You know, when I always hear about that, I always. My follow up question is, how is your water intake? And mainly pregnant women. I was even just talking to a past client yesterday who was 14 weeks pregnant, and she was adverse to water, you know what I mean? So I would just watch your water intake, especially when you’re pregnant. A lot of pregnant women need upwards of 100oz per day, and then you’re breastfeeding. It goes up from there to about a gallon.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:31:41] If you’re feeling constipated, check on your water first. And then, a huge recommendation during pregnancy is more magnesium, especially at night, which helps with insomnia. so we have a magnesium glycinate, which is an incredibly absorbed form of magnesium that pregnant women love, love, love, love, love that’s separate from a prenatal. that you want to take at night.
Sarah Trott: [00:32:08] Is that a capsule or is that the powder? Like the one I’ve tried, the miracle worker?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:32:12] The miracle worker is the magnesium. So we have it in the powder form, which everyone loves. It’s like a delicious mocktail at night. But we also do have the capsule.
Sarah Trott: [00:32:21] Okay. Yeah. and then any other discomfort or concerns that you hear from folks about prenatal vitamins?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:32:31] Not not about prenatal. I think one of the supplements that you mentioned that you’re taking, which I would be remiss if we didn’t bring up, is the women’s probiotic.
Sarah Trott: [00:32:40] Oh, yeah.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:32:41] Yeah, we actually took the two most researched strains that are the only strains to reduce Group B strep and put them in this probiotic. So Group B strep is something that doctors will test. And it’s very important to test. And it’s very important you don’t have it. but if you test positive for Group B strep early in pregnancy, there’s a possibility you might be able to get rid of it and not have to take antibiotics during labor.
So, yeah, those are the two strains in the women’s probiotic to help reduce Group B strep. And it’s also really supportive if you’re someone who’s susceptible to yeast infections or UTIs. And if you’re not susceptible to any of those things, it’s just very powerful to keep everything feeling and and seeming really good in the vaginal Microbiome. That’s a whole other discussion. But it’s really important to keep very happy.
Sarah Trott: [00:33:46] Yeah. So the prenatal vitamin does have probiotic in it?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:33:50] No, it has a little bit of a probiotic. But then separately, if you’re someone who did test positive for Group B strep or you want to make sure you don’t have it or you’re getting UTIs or yeast infections, that’s separate would be the women’s probiotic that you’d want to add on. So you basically want to create a supplement stack for yourself.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:34:09] And then fish oil – fish oil is very important to be taking during pregnancy too. So those are the ones that you really want to focus on for the best pregnancy and love it.
Sarah Trott: [00:34:20] Yeah. Love it. I’ve tried spore based probiotics before. do you want to talk about that? Like is there a difference in probiotics? I actually don’t know that.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:34:33] So only one of our, one of ours is spore based. And so spore based probiotics can be. Really. What’s the word I want to use? Powerful. Spore based probiotics are not for a beginner gut. And so if you’ve got any gut issues starting with spore based can really, like, cause them havoc, it can cause more bloating and kind of like, die off of the gut.
But spore based probiotics for healing the gut are just really powerful. You just want to start them slow. The supplement that we have that does have spore based probiotics is the Healer Plus Pro. We also added in a dairy free colostrum into that. So it’s yeah, kind of a two for one immune booster. plus spore based probiotics. So yeah.
Sarah Trott: [00:35:24] Okay. Good to know I know I’m deep diving on the probiotics there because I love taking them. and gut health seems to be a really big topic and I’m glad it is lately. Because it’s not something that I recall, like my parents talking about when I was young. But now it seems to be that there’s a lot more awareness about these topics and the gut being and probiotics being a big part of that. with the gut being core to a lot of our health, actually.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:35:51] Yeah, it’s really the center of all health. And that’s how we started the company. And it’s transformed to really being a company for women. and yeah, we have four different probiotics because we really and I really believe they need to be personalized, you know what I mean? So we have a quiz if anyone’s wondering. Well, what probiotic should I be on out of those four? We have a quiz on our website that you can take which will help you decide.
Sarah Trott: [00:36:20] Perfect. All right, so people can check that out.
Sarah Trott: [00:36:24] So then you talked about two pills versus more. And so the reason I bring that up is because we want to touch on the routine. So what does it look like for a daily routine to incorporate prenatal vitamins?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:36:40] So our prenatal you’d want to take three with breakfast and three with lunch. Okay. if you’re someone who you’re having a tough time taking down pills, you could do two with breakfast, two with lunch, two with dinner. If you’re really having a tough time, three per day if you can get in three per day, that’s going to be so powerful for you and your baby. so that’s the routine.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:37:05] And then on the other pieces, magnesium at night, do yourself a favor. You will not have constipation while pregnant or insomnia if you take a good dose of magnesium. One scoop at night and you want to make sure you’re taking two fish oil at least 1000mg, especially during the third trimester. Those are the really really big ones. Increasing vitamin D, increasing iron. You know, when you’re pregnant, you don’t have to take this amount of supplements all the time. But if you can just really focus on pregnancy and postpartum, it’s going to reduce a lot of the issues that us women deal with around those times.
Sarah Trott: [00:37:45] Yes. And if someone is taking the additional iron, if they’ve done their testing or they just know they need the additional iron, how about addressing what you mentioned that they don’t really work well together. How would that work into the routine?
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:37:58] Take it at night. That’ll be awesome. And if you even want to furthermore increase iron absorption, take it with vitamin C, either a supplement or you can take it with half an orange at night. vitamin C helps increase iron absorption. So that’s really important. You can take it with the magnesium at night. That’s not going to decrease it. So I would add that in okay.
Sarah Trott: [00:38:22] You talked about the vaginal biome. I want to go back to that. Let’s talk about the importance of that as it relates to our gut health and our microbiome.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:38:31] Oh my gosh. So we have all these different areas in our body that have a lot of bacteria, good and bad bacteria. And we want the good and bad bacteria to be balanced. We want low amounts of bad bacteria, although everyone has it everywhere: mouth, gut, intestines. The vaginal microbiome, and when the vaginal microbiome becomes imbalanced, we see things like yeast infections, UTIs of the you know, that’s the urinary tract basically being out of balance. And so these are such common things for women.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:39:08] But if we start. It all starts in the gut which is really important to know. But then you also can do things like the specific probiotics for the urinary tract and vaginal microbiome, like the women’s probiotic with the two strains. Those two strains are specifically going to support that. But if you’re having a lot of these issues, we have to go back to what’s the environment of the gut microbiome, because the gut microbiome affects every other balance in the body. And so yeah, like improving your gut health, whether it’s doing testing or not. And just taking a personalized probiotic will really improve how you feel and then reduce any of those yeast infections, UTIs, gut issues that you don’t want to have.
Sarah Trott: [00:39:58] Yeah. Brilliant. No, I mean that’s the goal. Avoid those. Well, okay.
Sarah Trott: [00:40:06] I want to touch on one last thing, which is talking about taking supplements after baby is born. So prenatal vitamins when you’re not pregnant. We talked about it before, but you also mentioned at the top of our discussion taking them after baby is born. Yeah. Let’s talk about why and how long.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:40:29] Yes. So the baby. In theory, is never nutrient deficient. The baby, while it’s growing, sucks all the nutrients from the mom. And so while in the prenatal, we’re adding additional things like choline that’s going to directly go to the baby and folate. the mom becomes in many, many instances nutrient deficient.
And when we’re nutrient deficient and then postpartum affects a lot of things. It affects our energy. It affects our hair. So many women have hair loss postpartum. It affects our mental health with anxiety and depression when we’re nutrient deficient. And so yeah, while I recommend to our clients that we want to continue to take our prenatal vitamin to reduce any of that.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:41:18] You know, I’m six months postpartum. I’ve never really had any hair loss. and that’s because it has a lot of great B vitamins, a lot of other blood sugar balancing support. Yeah. and so you want to be taking it at least a year. You know, I think sometimes I’m like six months going through it myself. I’m like, I am nowhere near where I want to be nutrient wise, because I test my nutrients.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:41:46] You want to be optimal. And so when the baby’s been growing inside of you for nine months, you need to replenish those nutrients, even if you are on a very high quality prenatal. So I definitely recommend a year full dose if you can do it. Very important if you’re breastfeeding.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:42:02] And then also knowing things like fish oil that are recommended during pregnancy, continue those as well. If we think about it, we’re taking fish oil for baby’s brain development. Why keep also alluding to the brain is it’s the most nutrient intensive process to create, think about a brain this wildly complex and it’s really important in our baby’s development. And so I was literally taking fish oil and I was just thinking about the power of it. You know, I’m taking fish oil. I’m breastfeeding right now. It’s going directly into that breast milk, my baby’s getting it, and it’s nourishing her body so much. So also you can think about your nutrition postpartum you know, what you’re eating. And if you’re breastfeeding that is really adding to baby’s nutrient status as well, which is really important.
Sarah Trott: [00:43:01] Yes for sure. Thank you. Thank you for answering all of our questions. I am going to wrap us up now, unless there’s any final word you’d want to share.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:43:13] Just know that you deserve to feel amazing. And supporting your body with supplements is a very easy way to do that. High quality supplements and it’s just that you deserve to feel really good. So. Yeah.
Sarah Trott: [00:43:28] Okay, you heard it. There’s a lot of information that we covered, a lot of technical information too, about specific things to look for. So like I said, we will give an overview of what to look for in an article on our website.
Sarah Trott: [00:43:42] We’ll also include a code – since earlier we talked about budget I have to mention this as well. We have a code for 10% off. So if anyone wants to use it it’s FOURTH. FOURTH you can go to https://www.gutpersonal.com/fourth. Or you can just type in the code at your checkout and get that discount. Thank you so much Bridgitte.
Bridgitte Mallinson: [00:44:02] Thank you so much.
The content provided in this article(s) is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or other professional advice. Neither Sarah Trott nor Fourth Trimester Media Group LLC are liable for claims arising from the use of or reliance on information contained in this article.