Is it safe to take all these vitamins?

[Mummy1988]

I am 33 weeks pregnant and have been taking Elevit (pregnancy multivitamin) for my entire pregnancy. At my last doctors appointment after a blood test my midwife said that my iron levels are low and that I needed to start taking an iron supplement daily for the rest of my pregnancy.

So I am now taking an Elevit tablet in the morning, an iron tablet at lunch time, and I have just started this week taking raspberry leaf tablets (Blackmores) at night.
I am just taking one raspberry leaf tablet at night, but would like to start increasing the dose to 3 x tablets daily as recommended on the bottle.

Is it safe to be taking Elevit, an iron supplement and raspberry leaft tablets all at once? I know that they say taking too many vitamins or taking too much of one vitamin (Elevit contains 60mg of iron in each tablet, plus I am taking the extra supplement on top) can be dangerous.

Any advice or info would be appreciated

Thanks :)

[kribby]

hey luv i'm new to all this pregnancy stuff but i been reading alot! :) it doesn't sound like a real big deal if your really worried i would give your midwife or OB a call just to double check!!!! better to be safe than sorry!
but from experience i had a really low iron BT and they told me to either up my red meat to 3 times a week or take a supplement as elevit doesn't give me enough! see i was low in vit d which helps with calcium absorb and vit c and i was therefor low in vitc which helps with iron absorb and i was therefor low in iron all because of the one vit!!! i have to take extra vit d and vit c on top of the elevit that i'm taking!!! and if you google the vit your worried about it'll tell you how hard it is to "od" on these vit. (i was worried also)!!!! and i am sure they are gonna put me on iron supplements as i've always had a prob with my iron
as for vit. i know your not supposed to have extra vit A and another one (can't remember but i know thats why it's not in elevit etc) but as for iron i wouldn't be too worried becuase from what i have read in preg books and baby books in the second half of pregnancy it is the most important stage where your baby needs a lot of iron!!! and becase of the increased volume of blood in your system the iron is more diluted! and you can become very sick with anaemia from not having enough iron! vit c helps for iron absorbtion (they all help one another)!!! you'll find elevit and preg vit only top you up if you are lacking in a particular area you will need to take more than what it can give you!
sorry i tend to ramble a bit :) hope this helps! but as i said just give your OB a buzz to double check (at least it'll set your mind at ease!)

good luck with everyhing keep us posted :)
Kribby

[trin_007]

I expect that your midwife would be pretty sure about recommending you take more iron at this stage of your pg. Like the pp said, these very commercial vitamin supplements are quite generic (ie. to cover all the population, not specific issues) therefore they may not be high enough in iron.

Regarding your RLT. I also had blackmores, 84 tabs equiv to 300mg. The recommended dosage is 3 tablets 4 or 5 times a day (:eek: yeah - 12 to 15 tabs per day). I really noticed the difference in my braxton hix when I started taking them, in that dosage, at about 36 weeks. FYI - my local health food shop had another RLT supplement which was only a couple of tablets per day. The bottle 'cost' twice as much as Blackmores, but the dosage works out to last twice as long - sorry just cant remember the brand at the moment, but obviously Blackmores is not the cheapest (or easiest) way to go!

[Padys Mom]

i have done a little bit of research and the only thing that i found is that the calcium found in the elevit tablets may interact with how the iron supplements are absorbed - depending on which iron supplement you are on???
the iron supplements found in elevit is a different genetic makeup to other iron supplements so this does not effect the absorbtion, However in saying that, all you have to do is take the tablets at different times and it doesnt matter at all
:flowerz:

i hope this is of some help