Folic Acid - how much?

Question

Im 33. My partner is 44. We're going to be trying to conceive soon. How much folic acid should I start taking? How much is too much? I have one bottle of centrum which has 400mg of folic acid and a bottle of prenatal vitamins with 800mg. I take one of those a day. The centrum tastes better and doesn't make me feel as nauseated. Advice?

Answer 1

I hope that's 400-800 *micrograms*, not milligrams!! 400 milligrams would probably kill you!! It should say 400 mcg. use a Greek letter that looks a little like a script lower case "u" followed by a g. You should never, ever take more than 1 mg. per day (1000 mcg.).

If you recently used hormonal birth control, then you probably need the 800, but you can take 2 400s as well as 1 800. (Take them about 12 hours apart.) This is assuming that these are *only* folic acid. If they are multivitamins, then you shouldn't take double without checking the dosage of every nutrient in the pill. (Hormonal birth control seriously screws up your body's supplies of folic acid.)

If you haven't used hormonal birth control, and you eat a well-balanced diet, then you probably don't need either one.

Answer 2

I have heard that you shouldn't take more than 250% of the daily recommended value, which is 400 mcg. I take a women's multi-vitamin, which has 400mcg. and I also take Fertility Blend, which I believe also has 400mcg. So, that's 200% of the recommended value right there. According to www.babycenter.com, all women of child-bearing age should take at least 400mcg per day.

You should take more folic acid when you get pregnant (600-800mcg/day) and many physicians recommend that women start taking prenatal vitamins a month before starting to try to conceive (all drs. are different so check with yours). I wouldn't recommend taking both the Centrum and prenatal vitamin every day because the prenatals have a lot more of every other vitamin (than regular multi-vitamins) as well. If you want to take more than the recommended 400mcg., you can buy a separate folic acid supplement, which usually has around 400mcg (that's what I used to do before starting the Fertility Blend). If there's a history of neural-tube defects in your family, you should get take more, around 4,000mcg/day.

Also, folate is water-soluble, so your body will get rid of what it doesn't need. This also means that if you try to get folate from veggies, it's better to eat them raw or at least not excessively cook them because you don't want the folate to be cooked out.

Answer 3

I am a nutritionist

the recommended daily allowance for folic acid for women that are of child bearing age (but not yet pregnant) is 400mcg

AFTER you get pregnant that amount goes up to 600mcg not 1mg that someone else recommended.

Prenatal vitamins are not good regular multi vitamins, don't bother taking them till you are actually pregnant. your centrum is acutally a better daily vitamin, it has more vitamins and minerals (excluding iron which you cant talk in excessive ammounts unless anemic)

Answer 4

I had to use something called Slo-Fe. It's a slow release iron pill and you can get one with folic acid. It releases slowly over 24 hours and doesn't bother you because it doesn't bombard your body with too much iron/folic acid.

Answer 5

The centrumn alone is fine, you could also have a glass of orange juice every morning. I wouldnt take pre-natal vitamins especially if you are not pregnant. ( I never took them when I was pregnant anyway) as long as you eat right, take that centrumn you will be fine.

Good Luck :-)

Answer 6

You can also eat a lot of green leafy veggies. They have a lot of folic in them.

Answer 7

1mg is what you need to take.