The Best Prenatal Vitamins to Boost Your Pregnancy Nutrition

Nature Made prenatal vitamins are our top pick because they have all of the most essential nutrients recommended by ob-gyns, they’re a great value and you can find them at most drugstores. “I found them at Costco and they do the trick. I have horrible acid reflux and don’t find these hard to take,” says Laura, a mom of two and a Babylist team member. These prenatal vitamins provide your full quota of folic acid, iron and vitamin D as well as other essential vitamins. 

They even contain the full recommended amount of DHA, which is great if you don’t regularly eat fish. Just watch out for that fishy smell, as some reviews said it can be “overwhelming” and “a huge issue.” Similarly, as of 2024, Nature Made has begun including an orange scent/flavoring to make their softgels more palatable. Some people say they don’t mind it, while other reviews say “it smells like rotten fruit.” If you’re sensitive to the smell, try taking it with juice instead of water to help mask it.

These Nature Made vitamins include lots of different vitamins and minerals (it’s basically a multi-vitamin), but they’re skimpy on calcium. With only 150 mg (the calcium recommendation for pregnancy is 1,000 mg per day for ages 19-30, and 1300 mg per day for those 31 and up), you’ll need to make sure that the vast majority of your calcium is coming from your diet if you choose to take these. If you don’t eat enough dairy, leafy greens or fish, you may need an extra calcium supplement.

These prenatals also don’t have choline, so if that’s a nutrient you’re looking to get more of, you’ll need to up your intake of eggs, broccoli, soy beans and meat or consider another prenatal that has choline.

MegaFood prenatals are high on our list (and a favorite among Reddit users) because they do two things that no others on this list do: they have over half the recommended daily value of choline, and they include real food ingredients like broccoli, carrots and oranges to help your body absorb the vitamins and minerals more efficiently.

Now about the choline: As we said above, it’s essential for general human brain function, and there’s some evidence that it supports fetal brain development. But most prenatal vitamins only have about two to ten percent of the recommended daily value for pregnancy (10 to 55 mg), if they have it at all. MegaFood’s Baby & Me 2 vitamins, on the other hand, have 55% of the daily value of choline (300 mg). It’s an especially helpful supplement if you don’t have a lot of animal products in your diet, Oster says in her blog post about prenatal vitamins, so they’re a good choice for vegetarians.

And that’s not the only good news for vegetarians: these prenatals are made without dairy, eggs, fish or shellfish. For anyone with certain food allergies, they’re also gluten-free and made without major allergens like tree nuts and peanuts, soy and sesame.

The biggest downside to these prenatals is that they only have 18 mg of iron instead of the recommended 27 mg, so you’ll need to make sure that the rest comes from your diet in the form of foods like leafy green vegetables and sweet potatoes. 

These tablets also don’t contain DHA or any other omega-3 fatty acids, so you might consider an extra fish oil supplement on the side. As a positive, though, you won’t have fishy burps. In fact, some people say they taste pretty good compared to other non-gummy vitamins. “They have a sort of lemony aftertaste,” says one Reddit user, which may also help settle your stomach if you’re experiencing morning sickness.

Finding a vegan-friendly prenatal vitamin can be tricky. Three key nutrients—vitamin B12, Omega-3 DHA and iron—are most commonly sourced from animals, whether from meat, fish, eggs or milk. Ritual vitamins, however, use either bioidentical ingredients (meaning they’re made in a lab) or nutrients sourced through other vegan-friendly methods. 

Even if you aren’t vegan, Ritual is a great choice if you want to know exactly where your prenatal vitamin ingredients come from. The brand prides itself on ingredient transparency, offering visible supply chain information on where each of the 12 key nutrients in their prenatal vitamins are sourced. 

As far as the ingredients themselves, these prenatals contain three times the recommended daily amount of vitamins D and B12 to make absolutely sure your body is getting enough of those essential nutrients, as well as other key ingredients like iron, folate, choline and DHA. 

And for sensitive stomachs, the capsules are designed to not dissolve until they reach an area of your digestive tract that’s less likely to trigger nausea. “I had to take them at night because of medication I take in the morning, but I never felt sick taking them,” says Briana, a mom of two and Babylist’s associate editor. You can even choose a natural flavoring based on what will be more palatable to you, either citrus or mint. “The citrusy vibe makes them doable even when nauseous,” says Stormie, a mom of two and Babylist team member.

These supplements lack calcium, and although they have 18 mg of iron, they don’t meet the daily requirement. So you’ll have to be focused on getting plenty of those key nutrients through your diet or other supplements instead. And all the other prenatals on this list include a wide, nearly complete variety of all essential vitamins and minerals, but Ritual only includes 12 of them—if you’re low in vitamins A, C, B1, B2, B3, B6 or K1, or if you’re looking for an extra boost of zinc, you’ll need to add either new foods or additional supplements to your diet.

The final thing to keep in mind: These are the most expensive prenatals on this list. But you might find the price to be worth it, considering the vegan ingredients and their transparent sourcing. They’re available as a monthly subscription if you buy directly from the Ritual website, which can be convenient if you’re looking for one less thing to think about, but you can also get these vitamins a la carte from retailers like Target and Amazon.

Real talk: keeping anything down can be a major challenge for some pregnant people, particularly vitamins. But some swear that gummy vitamins do the trick. Probably because their flavors are gentle (and tasty) enough to be edible even when you’re experiencing early-pregnancy food aversions, and being able to fully chew a vitamin can be easier on a sensitive stomach.

These vitamins from Smarty Pants are our favorite gummy prenatals because they come in candy-like fruit flavors like lemon, orange and strawberry-banana, and they do it all without any artificial colors, sweeteners, preservatives or high fructose corn syrup. 

You get 100% of your daily amount of folate and 200% of your daily amount of vitamin D, plus DHA and all the other nutrients you need for a healthy pregnancy (except for iron—more on that in a bit). The serving size may be a downside—or an upside, depending on your preference. Unlike the other prenatals on this list that require one or two pills per day, you’ll need to eat four Smarty Pants gummies a day to get the amount of folic acid required for pregnant people. If you’re not into the flavors or chewing four gummies in one go, you might consider another option; but if you enjoy these gummies, then taking your vitamins suddenly becomes a daily treat to look forward to. “As someone who hates swallowing pills, I tried every prenatal gummy vitamin in existence and landed on SmartyPants. They tasted the best and seemed to have better ingredients than other gummy vitamins. I also love gummy candy so it was sort of a treat!” says Katie, a mom of one and Babylist team member.

Now about the iron: You won’t get iron from any gummy prenatal due to the difficulty of masking the metallic taste, so if you’re iron deficient, you’ll need to take a separate supplement. Just be sure to talk with your doctor first before starting an additional supplement, since you may not actually need it.

It's totally understandable if you want to try out a few different brands or types of prenatal vitamins to figure out what works best for you. But that can also mean paying full price for a bottle and risking not finishing it. To save you from potentially losing money, this sample box of prenatal vitamins (a Babylist exclusive) gives you four full-size packs at a third of the price that it would normally cost to try all of the included brands. The Babylist Prenatal Vitamin Box lets you try a selection of top brands, including:

• Nature Made: 60-day supply

• Ritual: 30-day supply

• WeNatal: 30-day supply

• Perelel: 3-day supply (3 daily packs with 5 capsules per day); 1 pack of first trimester supplements and 2 packs of second trimester supplements

Each bottle or pack is full of all the essential vitamins and minerals to support a healthy pregnancy, including folate, choline and vitamin D, but keep in mind that WeNatal doesn't include DHA, and Perelel doesn't include iron. Also note that this sample selection only includes capsules and softgels, so if you're looking to try gummy prenatals, you'll need to buy those separately.

The brands in the Babylist Prenatal Vitamin Box may change sometime in the future, but until then, it includes the four brands listed above. Since this sample box is a Babylist exclusive, you'll only find it in our online Shop.

These prenatal vitamins from One A Day offer just what they promise: one pill each day packed with all the nutrients you need for a healthy pregnancy. With 100%+ of the recommended daily value of 14 different vitamins and minerals, they cover all of the essential nutrients and more, including over 200% of the daily value of folic acid and your full daily dose of iron.

With all those ingredients, these softgels are honestly pretty big. But thanks to the smooth softgel coating, “they go down really easily,” an Amazon reviewer says. “Just don’t psych yourself out by how they look.” We recommend taking them with water to help them go down even easier. 

And while some other prenatals (like those from Nature Made, above) include flavorings to help mask the fishy taste of DHA, One A Day prenatals are free of artificial sweeteners and flavors. The downside is that they do have a fishy smell and taste that some people described as “rancid,” but that’s almost guaranteed anytime you have a vitamin with omega-3s like DHA. One thing to keep in mind: some people have said that these softgels can burst open in the bottle and coat all the other pills in fishy-smelling oil, so be sure to handle the bottle gently.

The other downside to these prenatal vitamins is that they’re more expensive than most other drugstore brands. They’re not as costly as some of the trendier online-only brands or subscription options, but if you’re hoping to just pick up your prenatal supply during your regular Target or Walgreens run, be prepared to pay a little bit more.

These prenatals from OLLY are another bestselling gummy vitamin option and a go-to choice for lots of pregnant people. For starters, they taste great (truly), with a raspberry citrus flavor. “I have a temperamental tummy and the OLLY prenatal gummies were the only ones that didn’t make me yuck,” says Daria, mom of two and Babylist team member. 

Whereas you’ll need four SmartyPants gummies to hit your daily dose, you’ll only need two OLLY Essentials, and they’re gentle on your stomach so you can take them at any time of day. Key nutrients include folic acid, Vitamin D and DHA (plus all the other usual suspects, except for iron of course), but keep in mind that these prenatals only have about 25% of the recommended daily amount of DHA and Vitamin C. They also technically have choline, but only 10 mg, or about 2% of the recommended daily amount, so it’s pretty negligible.

Like most prenatal gummy vitamins, these don’t include iron, so consider a supplement if your healthcare provider recommends one.

And as a heads up, recent reviews as of October 2024 make it seem like OLLY changed their formula. So if you tried them previously and remember a particular flavor and texture, this is basically a whole new vitamin. The taste is slightly sweeter now and the texture is a little more dense and sticky. Some people don’t mind the change, whereas others have expressed disappointment, calling it “weird” and “like off-brand fruit roll-ups.”