Pregnancy vitamins ‘increase chance of conceiving’ with IVF

They are also more likely to get pregnant more quickly than women taking just folic acid, a form of vitamin B, as a supplement.

The very small pilot study, which is now being replicated in a larger trial, was carried out by a team led by consultant Dr Rina Agrawal at University College London and the Royal Free Hospital.

Published in the journal Reproductive BioMedicine online, the research appears to show that women taking the supplement were more than twice as likely to get pregnant than women taking folic acid alone.

A viable pregnancy was regarded as a foetus with a heartbeat and a pregnancy that lasted beyond the first 12 weeks.

The research was carried out on 58 subfertile women, who were split into two groups, with one group receiving the vitamins and the other receiving folic acid. All had healthy, balanced diets as recorded in food diaries.

At the start of the study, they either did not have regular periods, which was impacting on their ability to conceive, or had 12 months of unexplained infertility.

The vitamin group was given a daily standard dose of Vitabiotics Pregnacare Conception while the other group received a daily standard dose of folic acid. After four weeks on the pills, the women had ovulation induced using standard drugs, including Clomid.

Around 60 per cent of women taking Pregnacare Conception got pregnant (18 out of 30) compared to 25 per cent of those taking folic acid (11 out of 28). Women on Pregnacare also took far fewer attempts to get pregnant than those on folic acid.

Vitabiotics did not commission the research or provide a grant.

Dr Agrawal added: “Women who are considering pregnancy should take a specially-formulated prenatal micronutrient supplement including folic acid and vitamin B12.”