I started taking pregnacare as soon as I became pregnant, or at least as soon as I became aware I was pregnant. As a couple we were very lucky and didn't have to actively try to begin our family. We made a conscious decision to see what happened after our skiing holiday in Jan 2011. We were pregnant within our first month and our gorgeous little girl was born at the beginning of November 2011.
As soon as we discovered we were pregnant I sent my husband shopping to boots to buy some multi vitamins as I had read that a lack of folic acid could result in spina bifida for my unborn child and I have always been keen on the motto of "prevention rather than cure". He came back with a 9 month supply of pregnacare as they were on 3 for 2 at the time and I started taking them straightaway. I find it very hard to actually quantify the benefit with these sort of products as you have no idea how you would have felt if you had not taken them but I certainly felt no ill effects and flet that my skin and hair improved considerably during my pregnancy but of course these are classic things that improve during a pregnancy!
I booked an appointment with the dr as you do and she told me the most important things i could do were keep stress free, fat chance with my job! Not become a couch potato and take multivitamins. I was keen to let her no I had already started on the vitamins and she approved of my choice. The other two issues were harder to avoid.
The pills are rather large and luckily I find pills fairly easy to swallow but if you are type that struggles you may struggle with swallowing these pills. They are roughly 10 mm long, 4mm wide and deep. They are rather a deep red almost rust colour and if you taste the pills you do get quite a strong sense of the iron within the pills.
These pills contain all the vitamins that a pregnant lady and growing baby could need during the 9 months and you can continue to take them during breast feeding to keep you topped up with all the necessary vitamins. A growing baby will strip it's mother of everything it needs to flourish and it is fairly common for women to suffer due to a lack of vitamins during her pregnancy. In later life it is known that women can suffer with osteoporosis due to the stripping of calcium during those relatively short 9 months. I found it comforting knowing I was safe guarding my future health as well as protecting my growing baby.
As I said I find it hard to quantify how much these vitamins helped but I can say I gave birth to a healthy 8 pound 10 ounce baby girl who is following the 75 centile curve perfectly. She was born and was able to hold her head up straightaway and several midwives commented that this was because I had a good diet. She was able to sit up unaided in her bumbo chair fro 4 weeks and has just popped her first 2 teeth at 15 weeks so is certainly fairly physically advanced.
Give your unborn baby a good headstart 
