Vitamins are good for pregnant women, just as doctors have long surmised.
A recent study confirms that women who take vitamins early in their pregnancies run a lower risk of delivering premature or low birth-weight babies. Doctors and midwives have been prescribing prenatal vitamins for years, but the federally funded Camden Study's recent findings were so conclusive that even the researchers were surprised. Between 1985 and 1995, scientists tracked more than 1,400 women at two clinics. Some patients took vitamins as well as other mineral supplements. The research team compared the pregnancies and babies of women who took dosages in the first trimester, the second trimester, or none at all.