Vitamin and mineral supplementation during pregnancy: is more necessarily better?

Appropriate nutrition counselling forms an essential component of optimising maternal and newborn health outcomes. Key nutritional deficiencies have been linked to various complications of pregnancy and birth, including pre‐eclampsia, fetal growth restriction, neural tube defects, skeletal deformities and low birthweight. Although promoting a healthy balanced diet is the best approach for meeting enhanced nutritional needs in pregnancy, many women choose to take multivitamin supplements in pregnancy, or are recommended to take them by a healthcare professional, in the hope that this will prevent the development of any important nutrient deficiencies. Given the vigorous manner in which pregnancy multivitamins are marketed to women (and men for that matter) and the frequency with which they are used, one could be excused for assuming that there is a strong evidence base to support their use. This is not the case according to a review on vitamin and mineral supplementation during pregnancy published in this edition of the Journal of Pharmacy Practice and Research