Folic Acid
My foreign doctor advised me to continue taking 5 mg of folic acid throughout my entire pregnancy, along with Pregnacare, which already contains 400 mcg. However, at my recent antenatal appointment, I was told to stop taking folic acid after 14 weeks. Now I’m feeling really confused about what I should do.
Because of my foreign doctor, I was able to get pregnant, so I really trust their advice. At the same time, I want to follow the guidance from my current antenatal team. I’m honestly in a dilemma and don’t know what the right decision is.
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The NHS recommends to take it when you're trying to conceive and up to 12/14 weeks pregnant. This is because the folic acid helps develop the neural tube. The neural tube is developed around the 12/14 week point so therefore it wouldn't be having any affect. If your anemic it can be recommended for the entire time but like you said your pregnacare already contains folic acid so there's no harm continuing it, my vitamins also have it in x
Hey! This can be super confusing and I've definitely been there when health professionals don't agree! Your best bet would be to ask your doctor what their justification is to take it the entire pregnancy. I've heard it's common for women with specific conditions like sickle cell or epilepsy to need that higher dosage of folic acid throughout their pregnancy.
Your midwife's advice is standard practice. At 12 weeks ish, the neural tube is formed, so there's no urgency to have folic acid from that perspective, though many women keep taking their vitamins because it's good for a developing baby!
See what your doctor says and if their justification makes sense, you can relay this to your midwife and hopefully come to a conclusion everyone, including yourself, feels happy with ❤️
It won't do you any harm in taking it throughout, I am taking procieve which has 400ug folic acid in plus folic on its own of 400ug and have been since a year before conceiving, I'm now 30+3 weeks and my baby is growing great and I've not suffered with any anemia or fatigue throughout my pregnancy so I'm just keeping doing what I'm doing as it seems to be doing the trick.
I've been advised to stop taking it after 12 weeks as there have apparently been links with taking folic acid and tongue ties. My 1st baby had a really significant tongue tie and feeding was really hard so I've stopped taking it
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