If swallowing a handful of capsules sounds unpleasant on a normal day, add first trimester nausea and suddenly the prenatal you carefully researched can become the last thing you want to take.
That is part of why prenatal gummies have become such an appealing alternative. They are easier to take, generally taste better, and can make staying consistent feel much more realistic. But there has historically been a catch. Gummies are harder to formulate with meaningful amounts of certain nutrients. And two prenatal gummies that look almost identical from the front of the bottle can be very different once you turn them around.
So what actually makes a good prenatal gummy, and how much do those differences matter?
We asked Tracy Shevell, MD, FACOG, a board certified high risk OBGYN with 25 years of experience in academic medicine. Dr. Shevell trained at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, completed her OBGYN residency at Mount Sinai and a Maternal Fetal Medicine fellowship at Columbia University. She also spent 17 years as an attending physician and Director of Perinatal Ultrasound at Stamford Health.
We asked her to compare four popular prenatal gummy options, Needed, OLLY, Nature Made and SmartyPants, and explain what actually matters beyond the marketing on the bottle.
First, What Should You Actually Look For in a Prenatal?
“The first thing I tell my patients is that not all prenatal vitamins are created equal,” says Dr. Shevell.
For her, the difference between an average prenatal and a well formulated one comes down to three things: the right forms, meaningful doses and thoughtful nutrient pairing. She pays particular attention to folate, vitamin D, choline, B6, B12, iodine, zinc and selenium.
And simply hitting 100 percent of the Daily Value is not necessarily the goal. “What I find most useful isn’t percentage of Daily Value covered,” she says. “It’s whether the actual dose of each nutrient aligns with what the research shows is clinically relevant.”
So before comparing brands, the more useful question may be: How much am I actually getting, and is it an amount that matters?
Are Prenatal Gummies Actually as Good as Capsules?
Prenatal gummies have historically come with a real tradeoff: they are easier to take, but harder to formulate with meaningful amounts of certain nutrients.
“A gummy has a ceiling on how much nutrition it can hold without compromising texture or stability,” says Dr. Shevell, which helps explain why some gummy formulas are lower in key nutrients or leave certain ones out altogether.
That does not mean capsules are automatically the better choice. During pregnancy, nausea, gag reflex and capsule fatigue can make consistency just as important as what is on the label.
“The best prenatal is the one a woman actually takes and tolerates,” she says. Format alone does not determine quality. A gummy can be a strong prenatal option if it delivers meaningful nutrition in a form someone can consistently tolerate.
Needed vs. OLLY vs. Nature Made vs. SmartyPants
At first glance, these prenatal gummies check many of the same boxes. The bigger differences show up when you look at how much of each nutrient you are actually getting.
“The most striking thing is the dosing gap,” says Dr. Shevell. “When you look at the actual amounts, you’re looking at a fundamentally different product.”
A Quick Prenatal Gummy Comparison
Needed’s Prenatal Gummy delivers roughly 8x more nutrition than Olly, 5x more than SmartyPants, and 6x more than Nature Made†.
Some differences worth noting: Nature Made includes calcium and magnesium in addition to omega 3s. SmartyPants combines methylfolate with DHA and EPA, while OLLY also includes DHA and EPA directly in its gummy.
Needed takes a different approach. Given the physical limits of the gummy format, it prioritizes higher amounts of several key nutrients within the prenatal gummy itself, including vitamin D, B6 and B12, and offers DHA and EPA in a separate dedicated formula.
The differences are substantial. Needed provides 40 mg of B6 compared with 2 mg in each of the other three, 4,000 IU of vitamin D compared with 800 to 1,200 IU, and considerably more B12.
Dr. Shevell says those differences are meaningful. “These are differences that translate to meaningfully different blood levels,” she says, pointing to the roles these nutrients play in areas including energy, fetal brain development, and bone health.
For someone prioritizing nutrient density within a prenatal gummy, this is where Needed separates itself most clearly from the other formulas we compared.
Dr. Shevell also notes that no prenatal gummy is likely to provide everything every person needs, particularly nutrients like iron, omega 3s and choline, which may need to be addressed through diet or targeted supplementation.
A Note on Iron, Omega-3s and Choline
Needed intentionally leaves iron and omega-3s out of its prenatal formulas and it’s worth understanding why. Iron needs vary significantly from person to person, so building a fixed amount into a multivitamin risks giving some women too little and others too much. Needed offers it separately so it can be dosed to an individual’s actual levels rather than a one-size-fits-all amount. Omega-3s present a different challenge: a clinically meaningful dose is difficult to fit into a gummy without substantially increasing serving size. Needed instead offers a dedicated Omega-3 formula delivering up to 1,000 mg of DHA+EPA per serving, about double what’s typically included in a standard prenatal gummy.
Choline follows a similar logic. At 55 mg, Needed’s gummy is in line with SmartyPants and Nature Made, though still below the Recommended Dietary Allowance for pregnancy, a gap common across the category given how bulky a full choline dose is to formulate into any multivitamin. For anyone looking to close that gap, Needed offers a Gummy + Choline+ bundle delivering an additional 500 mg of liquid choline per capsule to support baby’s brain and cognitive development during pregnancy, including healthy neural tube formulation*.
Price at a Glance
Needed’s Prenatal Gummy runs $42.99 for a one-time purchase, or as low as $34.39 a month. Olly and Nature Made are less expensive per bottle, at $13.99 and $20.59 respectively, while SmartyPants sits closer to Needed at $34.99 for a one-time purchase.
At roughly a dollar more per day than the least expensive option, Needed delivers about 20 times more B6, 3 to 5 times more vitamin D, and considerably more B12 than the other three. In this case, you get what you pay for.
Why B6 Is Especially Worth Looking at if Nausea Is an Issue
Of all the differences in the chart, B6 may be the most practical one for someone choosing a gummy because of pregnancy nausea.
“Nausea is one of the most disabling experiences of early pregnancy and one of the most common reasons women stop taking their prenatal altogether,” says Dr. Shevell.
Vitamin B6 is commonly used in the management of pregnancy-related nausea, which is why she finds Needed’s 40 mg dose notable.
“40 mg is a dose with actual clinical backing,” she says. Combined with a gummy format that may be easier to tolerate, Dr. Shevell says it can make the formula particularly well suited to someone struggling with nausea.
For someone reaching for a gummy because nausea is making a traditional prenatal difficult to take, the combination of a meaningful B6 dose and an easier format is particularly relevant.
Why Folate Form and Dose Matter
Folate is especially important during early pregnancy and neural tube development, but Dr. Shevell says both the amount and the form are worth considering. Needed provides 920 mcg DFE of methylfolate, while SmartyPants provides 600 mcg DFE of methylfolate and OLLY and Nature Made use folic acid.
Dr. Shevell prefers methylfolate because it is already in an active form. “Methylfolate bypasses that conversion step,” she says. “It’s the active and readily usable form of folate, even for those with genetic variations impacting folate conversion.”
Folic acid still has extensive evidence supporting its role in reducing neural tube defect risk, so one form does not automatically make an entire prenatal better. But in this comparison, Needed stands out for pairing methylfolate with the highest overall folate amount of the four.
So Which Prenatal Gummy Would an OBGYN Recommend?
After reviewing all four formulas, Dr. Shevell says Needed stands out because it addresses one of the traditional compromises of prenatal gummies: getting an easier format while still prioritizing nutrient density.
“I’ve been really impressed with how Needed has pushed the possibilities of gummies beyond what’s conventionally been done,” she says. For someone dealing with first trimester nausea, capsule fatigue or difficulty taking a traditional prenatal consistently, that combination becomes particularly relevant.
When we asked whether she would recommend Needed over OLLY, Nature Made or SmartyPants for someone specifically looking for a gummy, her answer was yes.
“Needed’s gummies are a delicious option, and their nutrient profile goes well beyond what I’ve seen in any other gummy on the market,” says Dr. Shevell.
That is ultimately where Needed earns the edge: meaningful nutrient dosing in a format designed for people who actually want or need a gummy.
That clinical perspective is echoed elsewhere. Needed is recommended by more than 20,000 healthcare practitioners, runs over 2,000 quality checks per product batch, and has conducted its own IRB-approved study of 235 pregnant women, which found that women taking Needed’s prenatal showed significantly higher blood nutrient levels of key nutrients compared to women taking a standard prenatal.
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All material on The Chalkboard Mag is provided for informational and educational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified healthcare provider with any questions regarding your health, and before beginning any diet, supplement, exercise or other health program. This story is brought to you in partnership with Needed.
†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.
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
