eMedTV Home » Women Channel » Vitamin B12 and Pregnancy Vitamin B12 and Pregnancy Compared to other people, pregnant women have an increased need for vitamin B12. Pregnancy problems could occur with severe vitamin B12 deficiencies, so it is important to treat a deficiency as soon as possible. If you are already taking this vitamin and pregnancy occurs, to your healthcare provider to discuss your need for additional doses of vitamin B12. Do Pregnant Women Need Vitamin B12 Supplements? Am I Getting Enough Vitamin B12 During Pregnancy? The RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance) of vitamin B12 for pregnant women is 2.6 mcg per day, compared to 2.4 mcg per day for most other adults. Many women easily get plenty of vitamin B12 through a healthy and well-rounded diet. However, strict vegetarians have a much higher risk for vitamin B12 deficiency. To compound the problem, most women take folic acid during pregnancy. While folic acid is important for preventing birth defects, it can also "mask" some of the signs of a vitamin B12 deficiency, making a deficiency much more difficult to detect.
Vitamin B12 Deficiency During Pregnancy Vitamin B12 is stored in large quantities in the body. The developing fetus uses up some of the pregnant woman's store of this vitamin, both in the process of development and to build up its own stores. At birth, the baby will have a much higher level of vitamin B12 in the blood than the mother. For most women, this does not appear to be a problem, and mild causes of vitamin B12 deficiency do not seem to increase the risk of birth defects or other problems. In addition, prenatal vitamins contain vitamin B12, almost always in doses significantly higher than the RDA. These higher doses are safe for women, as this vitamin has a low risk of toxicity. On the other hand, a severe vitamin B12 deficiency can have disastrous consequences. There is evidence that it may cause severe birth defects (including neural tube defects, much like a folic acid deficiency can cause). There is also some preliminary evidence that it may increase the risk of infertility, recurrent spontaneous abortions (miscarriages), and preterm birth.
Women with severe vitamin B12 deficiencies will need much more vitamin B12 than in a typical prenatal vitamin. They may even need vitamin B12 injections, at least for awhile. More Headlines in Vitamin B12 and Pregnancy ‣ Final Thoughts on Pregnancy and Vitamin B12 Vitamin B12 and Pregnancy Article Continues on Next Page » Last reviewed by: , List of references (click here) ‣ Vitamin B12‣ Vitamin B12 Benefits‣ Vitamin B12 Side Effects‣ Does Vitamin B12 Work?‣ Vitamin B12 DosageThere are two forms of vitamin B12 that you’re likely to come across – methylcobalamin and cyanocobalamin. The latter is much more common in multivitamins and B12 supplements, but there are lots of strong arguments to replace this ingredient with methylcobalamin. Methylcobalamin is rapidly gaining popularity and will surely one day dominate the industry. But what is it that makes methylcobalamin a superior health supplement? The Difference Between Methylcobalamin And Cyanocobalamin
These two different B12 forms are very similar. The only chemical difference between them comes down to one small part of the molecule, where the names give it away: where methylcobalamin has a methyl group (just carbon and hydrogen), cyanocobalamin has a cyanide group. And obviously cyanide isn’t something you normally expect to find lurking in your multivitamin. In fact, cyanocobalamin isn’t something nature ever intended your body to deal with – it exists only as a chemical synthesized in laboratories. It doesn’t occur naturally in any living organism. How Your Body Deals With B12 Your body actually has no use for the cyano- compound itself, and will set about converting any cyanocobalamin you take into methylcobalamin as soon as possible. It’s the methyl- compound that the human body needs to function properly. This doesn’t only mean that cyanocobalamin is a less efficient way to supplement your vitamin B12 intake. You also face the problem of what happens to the cyanide group that is liberated during conversion into the ‘active’ (useful) form of B12 i.e. methylcobalamin.
Cyanide is of course famous for being a poison, so your body needs to remove this unwanted substance. It should be noted that the amount of cyanide released in the conversion process isn’t thought to be large enough to actually cause any damage, and some common foods will also introduce small amounts of cyanide into your system. Still, it’s probably fair to say that most people would prefer not to start deliberately ingesting cyanide! Where Methylcobalamin Outperforms Cyanocobalamin Methylcobalamin also has a few other explicit benefits over its cyanide-containing sibling. Research has shown that it remains in the body for a longer period of time and at higher levels than cyanocobalamin, which means that your body is supplied with vitamin B12 for longer if you use methylcobalamin than if you use cyanocobalamin. The former may well also improve visual accommodation, but there is no evidence to suggest that the cyano- compound has the same effect. (Visual accommodation is the ability to quickly shift your focus from something nearby to something further away.
It’s often impaired by things like staring at a computer screen, and is affected by methylcobalamin because it is closely related to the nervous system). Treating Vitamin B12 Deficiency However, perhaps the greatest benefit of methylcobalamin comes when you consider the problem of B12 deficiency. In the majority of cases, this isn’t actually caused by not getting enough of the vitamin from your diet, but from being unable to absorb the vitamin properly. This can be caused by a variety of medical problems. Taking sublingual methylcobalamin (under the tongue) or with an injection allows the body to bypass the problematic absorption in the small intestine and use the vitamin immediately. This ensures that your body gets exactly what it needs, whereas if cyanocobalamin is used there can be further problems with converting the chemical into the active methyl- form. Heavy smokers in particular may struggle to process cyanocobalamin because of heavy metals and toxins that build up in the liver.
So why do pharmaceutical companies use cyanocobalamin in the first place? Why does it ever appear in multivitamins, and why do so few people know about the better alternative? The answer is predictably disappointing: money. Synthesizing the unnatural cyano- form is far cheaper than making or obtaining methylcobalamin. And of course most of these businesses are more focused on increasing their profits than making sure you get the best possible supplementation. Methylcobalamin is what your body actually wants and needs; cyanocobalamin is the substandard and unnatural substitute brought to you by the laboratories of big pharma. It doesn’t perform as well and even releases a known toxin into your body. So next time you buy a multivitamin or a B12 supplement, check the ingredients and make sure you’re getting the superior methylcobalamin that your body can actually use. We’ve picked out a few methylcobalamin products for you that are readily available on Amazon. Please take a look at our Recommended B12 Supplements page if you want to give your body the best!