Fertility supplements
Folic acid earns its place in your preconception routine, but not for the reason the bottle implies.
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Folic acid earns its place in your preconception routine, but not for the reason the bottle implies.
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Separate standard preconception guidance from products sold as fertility boosters.
More is not automatically better, especially when several products contain the same nutrient.
The evidence landscape
Folic acid earns its place in your preconception routine, but not for the reason the bottle implies. Its established job is helping prevent serious birth defects of your baby's brain and spine (neural-tube defects), not making you conceive faster. For the fertility antioxidants, a Cochrane review searched through September 2019 and found the evidence low or very low certainty. And evidence for one ingredient doesn't tell you a blend works.
Cochrane searched through September 2019 and pooled 63 randomised trials covering 7,760 women attending fertility clinics. Products, ingredients and methods varied between them, the live-birth evidence was very low quality, and side effects were poorly reported. Everyone in those trials was already at a clinic, so the review can't tell you how well the results carry over if you're trying without one. And it can't cover anything published after September 2019.
Take everything you're using to your clinician before pregnancy, herbal supplements included, and ask about safety in pregnancy specifically.
When the answer changes
Take everything you're using to your clinician before pregnancy, herbal supplements included, and ask about safety in pregnancy specifically.
Eating for fertility
What should I eat while trying to conceive?
Preparing for IVF
How can I prepare without getting in the way of my clinic's plan?
Our public fertility answers link to the sources behind them. If an answer has been reviewed by a clinician, that will be noted on the page.