If you read my last blog post, you know that some people use nutrition misinformation in order to sell supplements or herbal remedies. Unfortunately, pregnant and breastfeeding women, who understandably want the very best for their babies and themselves, are often targets for this kind of marketing.

Some dietary supplements and herbal remedies provide real, measurable benefit. However, most have not been studied well enough to show this. Until they are studied better, no one can know for sure if it’s truly the supplement or something like the placebo effect (where the person gets better because they believe they are going to get better).

In order to send prescription drugs to market, manufacturers must show that their drug is safe. This system is imperfect, and unsafe prescription drugs sometimes wind up on the market. But manufacturers of dietary supplements don’t have to submit a shred of evidence that their product is safe or works the way it’s supposed to. They don’t even have to prove that the product contains what it says it contains, or that their manufacturing processes are safe.

ConsumerLab.com functions like the Consumer Reports of dietary supplements. Their founder, who used to work for the FDA, summarized the regulation of supplements (or lack thereof) as follows: "’We called it 'the body rule, If a supplement was harmful, ‘we had to have so many adverse events before we could make a move on it.” Meaning that if the FDA suspects a supplement to be harmful, they have to prove it – instead of the supplement manufacturer having to prove that their product is safe. The lesson: bad dietary supplements can and often do get on the market.

How often? ConsumerLab.com recently conducted independent tests on dietary supplements and found that one out of four supplements they purchased right off of store shelves had any number of problems, including:

For more details, visit this link: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=7793957

And this link: http://health.yahoo.com/news/healthday/manysupplementssaidtocontaintoxinsmakefalsehealthclaims.html

The safest way to get the nutrients your body needs is to consume a well-balanced diet. Having said that, it would be a good idea for pregnant women to take a daily multivitamin with 600 micrograms of folic acid in order to prevent neural tube defects. Pregnant women with morning sickness may find fresh ginger to be helpful (about 1 gram per day). Vitamin B-6 supplementation, at a dose of about 25 mg three times per day for three weeks, may also be helpful for morning sickness. But it’s extremely important that you check with your doctor before using any of these supplements or remedies. They may conflict with some medications or medical conditions you have. And of course, as a pregnant or nursing mom, whatever you take, whether good or bad, may go through to your baby.

Other supplements have no proven benefit, or may actually do harm. For example, the jury is still out on whether supplementing with the fatty acid DHA really helps with baby’s brain or eye development. And taking St. John’s Wort for depression during pregnancy may contribute to complications for pregnant women and their babies, like uterine contractions and low birth weight infants.

When buying supplements or herbal remedies, look for United States Pharmacopeia (USP) label on the bottle. This label verifies the quality, purity, and potency of the product. To see which supplement manufacturers participate in this program (and there are very few of them), click on this link: http://www.usp.org/USPVerified/dietarySupplements/supplements.html

Consult a Registered Dietitian for advice about which supplements and herbal remedies may be of benefit to you, and again, check with your doctor before using any supplement or herbal remedy.

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