It’s a Girl

So the word from the pregnancy/parenting media on vitamins is this: Take tons.

Moms are supposed to knock back megamultivitamins before, during, and after pregnancy. Babies are supposed to get vitamin D supplements (because breastmilk is low in vitamin D) and, after the age of six months, when their iron stores are depleted, a multivitamin.

The only problem? Conventional liquid vitamin supplements for babies — at least those prescribed by our doctor and dispensed at our local Walgreen’s — come complete with creepy preservatives, mostly methylparaben, and color and flavor enhancers like caramel color.

To get around the vitamin D problem, our doctor suggested that I take vitamin D supplements, on the theory that I would excrete vitamin D into my breastmilk.

This is probably a good thing not just for Delphine but for me, since people living in the Pacific Northwest (where it’s cloudy and dark half of the year) tend to have low levels of vitamin D anyway (and hence, presumably, the low-vitamin-D-in-breastmilk problem).

Weirdly, the liquid vitamins manufactured for babies to combat vitamin D deficiency all have vitamin A in them, and sometimes vitamin C, too. This does not mean that these drops count as a multivitamin. No, when your baby hits six months of age, you’re supposed to ditch the trivitamin drops and get a bottle of multivitamin drops.

These drops — labeled “Poly-Vitamin Drops” and manufactured by a firm with the not very reassuring name of Hi-Tech Pharmacal — include vitamins A, C, D, E, B6, and B12, as well as thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, and fluoride.

I guess maybe the fluoride could be useful, since Delphine has two teeth by now, but still. Wouldn’t the fluoride be more helpful applied directly to her teeth — you know, the toothpaste principle — instead of her stomach?

(That said, I grew up in fluoridated Seattle, and whenever I visit dentists here in fluoride-free Oregon, they take one look inside my mouth and immediately say, “You must not have grown up in Oregon.”)

I tried to get around the chemical drops by buying a preservative-free multivitamin powder manufactured for infants. The problem with the powder, however, is that you’re supposed to give your baby 1/4 teaspoon of the stuff each day. Not a prob if the baby is drinking breastmilk from a bottle or eating lots of food, because you can dissolve the powder into either. But if your baby is drinking straight from the source, as it were, or not eating that much solid food (D. is only eating small amounts of puréed goodies these days, such as yams and pears), it’s tricky to get her to knock back the entire quarter-teaspoon in a day.

And here’s a conundrum: If babies over six months old are supposed to be taking multivitamins in part because the iron stores they’re born with are depleted by that age, why don’t the multivitamins include iron?

The La Leche League, of course, is skeptical about most supplements. After all, humans who’ve been able to eat a good diet, get plenty of sunlight, and breastfeed have generally succeeded in raising healthy children.

So we’re not fretting overmuch about whether Delphine — who just spent a sunny summer getting lots of outdoor time — is getting enough vitamins. As for the iron thing, well, we’ve got a lot of beef in our basement freezer from that quarter-cow we bought last summer.