What we look for in a prenatal, why gummies have historically fallen short, and why Needed’s new Prenatal Multi Gummy has changed our perspective.
We’ll start with something we’ve said for years: we’ve never been big fans of gummy supplements.
Our issue has never really been with the gummy itself. It’s been with what you often have to give up to get your vitamins in gummy form.
Historically, gummies simply haven’t been able to hold the same amount of nutrition as more traditional supplement formats. That can mean fewer quality nutrients, lower doses, or both. Add in unnecessary ingredients like artificial sweeteners and synthetic dyes found in some products, and prenatal gummies haven’t typically been our first choice.
But there’s another side to this conversation that matters just as much: a prenatal only works if you actually take it. And during pregnancy, that can suddenly become much harder than it sounds.
First-trimester nausea, food aversions, a heightened gag reflex, sensitivity to smells, or simply trying to swallow multiple capsules every day can make even the prenatal you carefully researched feel impossible to take. Many of us have been there!
For years, women have essentially been asked to make a tradeoff: choose the more comprehensive prenatal or choose the format you can actually tolerate. We don’t think women should have to choose. And neither does Needed. Needed spent four years trying to solve the gummy problem.
When Needed told us they were creating a prenatal gummy, we were intrigued, but also skeptical. We already love and recommend Needed products and appreciate the standards they use when formulating their products, so if anyone was going to make us reconsider prenatal gummies, we were willing to listen.
They spent years developing the Prenatal Multi Gummy, specifically working around one of the biggest challenges with gummy supplements: how much meaningful nutrition can physically fit into them.
The result? Seventeen vitamins and minerals in just three gummies per day, including methylfolate rather than folic acid, along with choline and clinically studied dosages of key nutrients. The comparison with other prenatal vitamins is what really got our attention.
Needed’s Prenatal Multi Gummy provides 4x more nutrition than the average of leading prenatals, including capsules‡ and 8x more nutrition than the leading prenatal gummy.‖
You read that right: 4x more nutrition than the average of leading prenatals, including capsules‡
This isn’t simply a prenatal that’s impressive for a gummy. Based on Needed’s comparison of labeled daily nutrient amounts relative to pregnancy Recommended Dietary Allowances, these gummies provide 4x more nutrition than the average of the leading prenatal products they evaluated, including traditional capsules‡! That changes the conversation around prenatal gummies for us!
More isn’t always better. So here’s what actually matters to us
We want to be clear about something here: we don’t choose supplements simply by looking for the biggest numbers on the label. More doesn’t always equal better.
As practitioners who have worked with hundreds of women over the years, we care about the bigger picture: which nutrients are included, their forms, quality, their amounts, how those nutrients work together, and whether the formula reflects the increased nutritional demands of pregnancy.
Needed’s Prenatal Multi Gummy contains 17 nutrients, and rather than boring you with a rundown of every one, there are a few formulation decisions we think are worth highlighting.
Needed uses methylfolate (NOT folic acid) and includes meaningful amounts of nutrients like vitamin D3, B6, B12, selenium and zinc, along with choline.* And these aren’t arbitrary formulation decisions. Needed conducted a clinical study of 235 pregnant women. Women taking Needed’s Prenatal Multi Pro had significantly higher blood levels of several key nutrients compared with women taking standard prenatal vitamins. That’s something we appreciate about Needed in general: their approach isn’t simply about meeting the bare minimum required to create a prenatal vitamin. They’re looking at the research, nutrient forms, dosing, and what women actually need during fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum.
One important thing to know about choline
You hear about choline a lot related to pregnancy because it plays an important role in fetal brain and nervous system development.* Needed managed to include 55 mg of choline in its Prenatal Multi Gummy, which is notable considering how much physical space choline requires in a supplement. But it’s still not enough to meet total pregnancy needs, and Needed isn’t pretending that it is.
For women who want additional choline, they offer a Prenatal Multi Gummy + Choline bundle, which makes it easy to add more without trying to cram an unrealistic amount into three gummies. We actually prefer this kind of transparency in supplement formulation.
FIND THE PRENATAL MULTI GUMMY + CHOLINE BUNDLE HERE
And what about iron and omega-3s?
You’ll notice that iron and omega-3s aren’t included in the gummies. That’s intentional. Across all of Needed’s prenatal options, omega-3s and iron are kept separate, each for a different reason. An optimal amount of omega-3s simply doesn’t fit well within a multivitamin (especially a gummy) so Needed keeps them separate to allow for more meaningful dosing and better stability.
Iron is also separate because iron needs can vary significantly from woman to woman. Instead of treating it as one-size-fits-all, keeping it separate allows it to be dosed according to individual needs. This is an approach we love! The goal shouldn’t be to cram every possible nutrient into one product just so the label looks impressive. The goal is thoughtful, effective supplementation.
We looked at the other ingredients, too
Of course, if we’re going to recommend a gummy, we want to know what makes it taste like one.
The gummies come in Strawberry-Banana and Orange-Passionfruit-Pineapple and are made without synthetic dyes, synthetic food coloring, artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols, high-fructose corn syrup, or gelatin. They are also third-party tested, which includes testing for contaminants such as heavy metals and pesticides. What we love the most is that Needed also conducts more than 2,000 quality checks per batch, from raw materials through the finished product. These details matter to us, especially for something women may take before conception, throughout pregnancy, and into postpartum.
So, have prenatal gummies officially won us over?
You could say that. But not just any. We still wouldn’t grab just any bottle of prenatal gummies off the shelf and assume they’re equivalent to a comprehensive prenatal.
They’re not.
What has changed is our opinion about what is possible in gummy form. Needed has succeeded in doing that. If you’re doing great with a comprehensive prenatal capsule, there’s no reason you suddenly need to switch to gummies.
But if you’re struggling? If morning sickness makes capsules nearly impossible, your gag reflex has other plans, you dread taking your prenatal every day, or you simply know you’re far more consistent with gummies, you shouldn’t have to settle for significantly less nutrition just because that format works better for you. That’s the gap this fills.
It’s easy to take. It tastes good. It skips the unnecessary ingredients we don’t want. And most importantly, it was formulated to provide meaningful prenatal nutrition, not simply to be a convenient gummy.
We’ve always said the best supplement isn’t the one with the prettiest label or the longest ingredient list. It’s the one that’s thoughtfully formulated for what your body needs in that season and that you’ll actually take consistently. For the first time, we think a prenatal gummy can check both boxes.
SHOP NEEDED PRENATAL MULTI GUMMIES
This post is sponsored by Needed, a brand we genuinely recommend to our patients and use personally.
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
ǁ Based on a comparison of each brand’s labeled daily serving amounts of vitamins and minerals relative to the pregnancy Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs), calculated as an average across those nutrients. As of May 2026.
‡ 4x more nutrition refers to the average amount of vitamins and minerals provided per daily serving, measured relative to pregnancy Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs), compared to the average of the leading prenatal gummy and capsule brands and Needed’s Prenatal as of May 2026.
Supplement needs during fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum are individual. Talk with your healthcare practitioner about what’s appropriate for you.
