Vitamin D - is a supplement needed for pregnancy?

The nurse had mentioned to me about starting vitamin D supplement, along with folic acid. According to her, women planning to have a baby should take both vitamin D and folic acid.

While the importance of folic acid is undisputed, vitamin D is a new thing to me.

Why do pregnant women need to take vitamin D?
Studies have shown that a lack of vitamin D may be associated with premature birth.

Does that mean I need to take a pill? Can't I just get it from a few hours of sunshine?
The advice about whether taking Vitamin D pills is necessary or not is conflicting (UK does not recommend that pregnant women should taking vitamin D) A main reason is how easy it is to obtain this vitamin - just get some sunshine. However, that may not be the case in the long winter months, or if you dress in a way that minimise exposure to the sun.

Other than the sun, we also get vitamin D from food, such as oily fish like salmon and mackerel ( which also supplies the DHA and EPAs!).

Other reasons to have enough vitamin D when preggie:
Vitamin D is involved in the proper regulation of calcium and phosphate in the body - which is necessary not only for the development of the baby's bone  and healthy development of muscles etc. You also need it to make sure that your own bones and teeth are well maintained.

When will we be ready to be mothers?

I read my previous post " I don't want to be a mum" again. I didn't try when I was younger not because I was just focusing on myself or my career. I was simply not able to - we were struggling with paying the bills.

With the cost of going to university getting higher and higher, when will people from working class feel able to have kids on their own? When you come from a working class family, you will pretty much expected to pay for your own college, and that is usually through loans and part-time work. With school fees going up, a larger portion of it will be loans. People like me would also have to struggle to help the rest of their family with the bills. With a blink of an eye, your twenties and early thirties will be gone, and you are just struggling to save some money for that mortgage.

Does that mean you will be postponing having kids? Child care costs are ridiculous. Can you manage mortgage with a single income? Renting might be a possibility if in certain countries, but it goes up like crazy in others after the credit crunch. While house prices remain stagnant ( no one can buy them), they people who fail to buy have to rent.

If you like me, you have been through the total hardship of growing up in a broken or poor family, you won't want your child to take the same path.

It will be really interesting to see the effect of credit crunch in our population thirty years down the road.