If you're pregnant or thinking of becoming pregnant, making sure you have the right balance of nutrients and vitamins in your diet and from supplements is essential for your health and the health of the fetus.

That’s because low levels of six nutrients — folic acid, vitamins A and D, calcium, iron, and omega-3 fatty acids — can cause pre-term birth, low birthweight, birth defects, and other problems.  

Researchers from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus recently studied 2,450 women during their pregnancy. Fully 90% of them had diets that were deficient in those nutrients.

And their supplements didn't rate much higher. Out of 20,547 dietary supplements available in the U.S. that the researchers tested, including 421 prenatal products, only 69 products (33 prenatal) contained any amount of those six nutrients; seven (two prenatal) contained target doses for five nutrients.

What should you do? Upgrade your diet to eliminate highly processed foods and to include a good supply of those six nutrients. Then take a prenatal multivitamin-multimineral supplement, along with additional supplements that provide an extra 600 mg of calcium, 400 mg of magnesium (to prevent constipation from calcium), and 900 mg of DHA omega-3.

Start taking them six months before you want to get pregnant, and give the supplements to your partner as well until you are pregnant.