Written By: Debjani Arora | Updated : October 9, 2014 5:09 PM IST
It is vital to have your iron medications on time during your pregnancy. Iron plays an important role in ensuring adequate supply of hemoglobin in the body, which is of utmost importance during your pregnancy. Remember, with a baby growing and developing within you, your blood volume increases by at least 40 to 50 percent. Adequate levels of hemoglobin in the blood will now help in better oxygen and nutrient supply, to the baby, from the mother's blood stream. In fact, lack of it can lead to anemia in the mother. This could in turn hamper cell and organ development in the baby by deteriorating the placenta, which otherwise helps in the transfer of nutrients, blood and oxygen from the mother to the baby. Read anemia during pregnancy causes, symptoms and treatment.
However, just having the pill or medicine without paying heed to any other factors isn't going to help you much in the entire process. This is because you need to ensure that the iron pill or medicine that you consume is absorbed by the body appropriately, to reap its various benefits. To do this, try having your iron pill along with a glass of orange juice. The vitamin C present in the juice will aid in the absorption of iron. Alternatively, you can also have an orange, the whole fruit, after having the pill. For the same reason, avoid having the pill with a glass of milk as the calcium in the milk can block the absorption in the body. Read eight must have vegetables for pregnant women.
Apart from your regular iron pill that you would be having daily, you can also incorporate iron in your diet through other food sources, like dried beans and peas, dried fruits, dark leafy vegetables, poultry products etc.
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Also read our other pregnancy related articles:
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