Wondering how to choose a prenatal vitamin when every label—and every influencer—says something different?

From folic acid versus methylfolate to iron, choline, and DHA, pregnancy preparation can quickly turn into another overwhelming research project.

Chelsea Skaggs joins Zawwar Khan, founder of CareNatal, to unpack prenatal vitamin labels, supplement marketing, and the pressure to make the “perfect” choice for your baby.

We explore practical questions to bring to your provider and why your budget, nausea, and ability to consistently take a prenatal belong in the conversation.

In this episode:

• What to look for when comparing prenatal vitamins
• Folic acid versus methylfolate—and questions to ask your provider
• Where iron, choline, and DHA/EPA appear on the label
• What “third-party tested” tells you—and what to ask next
• Choosing a manageable format when pregnancy nausea hits
• How partners can share the research and mental load before baby arrives

Your prenatal choice is not a measure of how much you love your baby.

Find CareNatal through Postpartum Together:
https://www.carenatal.com/postpartumtogether

RESOURCES MENTIONED
Free prenatal vitamin research spreadsheet, created by CareNatal:
Spreadsheet – CareNatal

PREPARE FOR PARENTHOOD TOGETHER
Explore Prep for Us, our relationship preparation program for expecting couples:
https://www.postpartumtogether.com/prepare-relationship-before-baby

Disclosure: Chelsea received CareNatal product samples.

Zawwar is the company’s founder.

CareNatal’s comparison resources are company-created.

This conversation provides general education. Discuss your individual supplement needs with your healthcare provider.

Can you prevent postpartum depression? There is no checklist that can guarantee a new mom will or won’t experience postpartum depression, but there are evidence-based preventive interventions and protective factors couples can begin putting in place during pregnancy.

In this episode, Chelsea talks about postpartum mental health through the lens of preparation, partnership, and support. Prompted by the current conversations surrounding the Lindsay Clancy trial and Hayden Panettiere’s public history with postpartum depression, she explores what expecting parents can do before the baby arrives to create a stronger safety net around the postpartum mother.

Important: Chelsea is not a mental health clinician, and this episode is not medical advice or postpartum depression treatment. Postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis are also distinct conditions, and postpartum psychosis can require emergency psychiatric care.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Understanding your individual risk factors for postpartum depression during pregnancy

• Why you may want to establish with a perinatal mental health therapist before birth

• Building a maternal mental health support team before you need it

• Why your partner should be part of your safety net—but not your entire safety net

• Protecting postpartum sleep and creating opportunities for meaningful rest

• Preventing one parent from automatically becoming the default parent

• Sharing the mental load instead of waiting for mom to delegate

• Questions partners can ask beyond simply, “How are you?”

• Creating a postpartum mental health escalation plan during pregnancy

• What partners can actually own without trying to diagnose or “fix” postpartum depression

• Why functioning does not necessarily mean a new mother is doing well

• How expecting couples can build stronger relational protective structures before their baby arrives

One of the biggest takeaways:

Your partner does not need to own your mental health.

They can own more of the environment around you.

That can mean protecting opportunities for sleep, bringing food and water without being asked, taking ownership of household responsibilities, managing visitors, learning warning signs, knowing who to contact, noticing meaningful changes, and believing you when you say something does not feel right.

Find perinatal mental health support through Postpartum Support International:
PSI Perinatal Mental Health Provider Directory | PSI Perinatal Mental Health Directory

Download Chelsea’s Postpartum Plan:
Postpartum Planning Checklist for Couples | Postpartum Together

Learn more about Prep for Us:
Prep for Us: How to Prepare Your Relationship for a Baby | Postpartum Together

Prep for Us is Chelsea’s six-week preparation program for expecting couples. It is not postpartum depression treatment. Instead, couples work on the relational structures that can support a healthier postpartum environment—including understanding stress responses, sharing the mental load, protecting recovery, identifying support, communicating needs earlier, and learning how to recognize when something is no longer working.

Because we cannot guarantee that a mother will never experience postpartum depression.

But we can stop making “hopefully she tells us if she’s drowning” the postpartum mental health plan.

How should couples split newborn nights? (And does “sharing the nights” actually mean the same thing to both of you?)

In this episode, Chelsea walks expecting couples through several ways to divide overnight newborn care, from split-night shifts and alternating wake-ups to feeder/support-partner roles and evening-and-morning coverage.

More importantly, this isn’t about finding the perfect newborn sleep schedule.

It’s about making sure both partners understand what they are agreeing to, protecting each person’s basic need for rest, and knowing how to adjust when your original plan stops working.

Chelsea covers:

• Different ways couples can split newborn night shifts
• Whether both parents need to wake up for every feeding
• How breastfeeding changes nighttime responsibilities
• What the non-feeding partner can fully own
• How returning to work affects the conversation
• Why paid work and postpartum recovery both deserve consideration
• Warning signs that your current system isn’t working
• How to avoid sleep scorekeeping and resentment
• Questions to discuss before your baby arrives
• How to safely say, “I’m not functioning well anymore”
• Why the ability to revise the plan matters more than creating the perfect plan

One important reminder from this episode:

Teamwork does not always mean doing the same task at the same moment.

The goal is to build a system where one person’s sleep, recovery, or needs do not automatically become less important than the other’s.

Use these questions after listening:

1. What does each of us imagine nighttime care will look like?
2. How much uninterrupted sleep does each of us need to function?
3. How will feeding affect the division of nighttime care?
4. What can the non-feeding partner fully own?
5. How will we handle nights before a workday?
6. How will either of us say, “I am no longer functioning safely”?
7. When will we review and revise our plan?

Prep for Us is Chelsea’s six-week program for expecting couples who want to prepare for more than birth and baby gear.

Together, you’ll clarify expectations, understand your stress responses, divide responsibility more intentionally, communicate needs earlier, and create systems that can flex when real life looks different from the plan.

Prep for Us: How to Prepare Your Relationship for a Baby | Postpartum Together

Learn more from Chelsea at Postpartum Together.

About Relationship Coaching with Chels + Mike | Postpartum Together

Instagram: @postpartumtogether

Questions to discuss with your partner

Prepare for parenthood as a team