“Have you started taking prenatal vitamins yet?”
It’s likely the first thing your OB/GYN or midwife will ask at your first appointment after learning you’re pregnant.
But the health of your future baby actually begins before you conceive, which is why medical experts recommend taking prenatal vitamins even before becoming pregnant if possible. That way, your body already has adequate levels of folate to support neural tube development in the earliest stages of pregnancy (including before you even get a positive test).
I wanted to try Perelel’s prenatals for myself. My husband and I started with their:
- Conception Support Pack
- Fertility+ Support
- and Men’s Multi Support Pack
Here are our thoughts!
What this review covers:
Thank you to Perelel for sponsoring this review! As always, we only make recommendations that are genuine. We accept very few sponsorships, but doing so allows us to continue providing free content to readers like you.
First: Perelel Brand Basics
In case you haven’t heard of it yet, Perelel is an OB/GYN-founded vitamin company with a primary focus on women’s health throughout the entire fertility journey, from the trying-to-conceive stage to postpartum, and even in everyday life after the baby arrives.
I was impressed by the specific formulations they offer for a wide range of fertility stages–including products that support your body before egg freezing, after pregnancy loss, or during perimenopause. So many of these stages get overlooked, despite the fact that SO many people go through them!
Their collection also includes men’s multivitamins (which my husband is a fan of—more on that below), protein powders (which Abbie loves!), hydration support, and other daily support supplements. So it’s not just about pregnancy and breastfeeding; their product line is also focused on general wellbeing, too.
(Before I forget: if you decide to give Perelel a try, you can use the code THEFILTERY20 for 20% your first purchase.)
Testing & Certification
This is one of the most important things to me when looking at supplements. The supplement industry is largely unregulated, so I want to see brands that prioritize third-party testing to make sure—
- what’s actually in their product matches the label, and
- that the product is as low in contaminants as possible (including things like heavy metals and plasticizers)
I love that Perelel’s supplements are Clean Label Project certified. This is one of the best third-party labels for supplements specifically; it means they’ve been tested for a wide variety of contaminants, including heavy metals, and meet Prop 65 requirements.
They’ve even earned the CLP’s Purity Award, which essentially means that they’ve proven to be one of the ‘cleanest’ brands in their category.
My Thoughts After Trying Perelel’s Conception Support Pack
My husband and I have a toddler and when we decided to start trying to have another baby, I wanted to make sure we were supporting both of our bodies as much as possible. We already do a lot of the basics—eating whole foods, getting good sleep, reducing hormone disrupting chemicals in our home—but I wanted to make sure any gaps were filled… which is why I was excited to give Perelel’s Conception Support Pack a try.
According to Perelel’s website, the Conception Support Pack is for anyone who is:
- trying to conceive
- thinking about trying in the next 6-12 months
- and/or preparing for IVF treatments
(P.S. Although this review is focused on Perelel’s Conception Support Pack specifically, a review of their 1st Trimester Prenatal Pack is on the way as well! You can also check out Abbie’s thoughts on Perelel’s protein powder and electrolytes.)
The Packaging
If you order any of Perelel’s “support packs,” your vitamins will come in little pre-measured BPA-free pouches for daily consumption. While I’m not a fan of the excess waste that these little pouches generated, I did find them extremely convenient as a mother of a toddler.
I am not one to take the time to painstakingly organize my vitamins into a weekly container. I tried it once in the past, but somehow my vitamins got compromised by moisture and I ended up wasting a lot of money throwing them away.
I really like that I can throw a Perelel pouch in my purse or lunch box when I’m in a hurry in the morning. (I’ve been guilty of putting loose vitamins in my pockets in the past and it rarely turned out well LOL)
My husband also tried the Men’s Multi Support Pack (the first time he has ever taken multivitamins since I’ve met him). He agrees that the pouches are a major reason why he takes them consistently. I say that’s a win!
Okay, But What’s Actually IN the Conception Support Pack?
The Conception Support Pack is priced at $45.95/month if you sign up for a subscription. It comes with 30 daily pill packs. Each pill pack contains:
- two Core Prenatal vitamins
- one Omega DHA + EPA gel capsule
- one CoQ10 + Folate capsule
That makes for a total of four pills to swallow once a day with a meal and water. Four pills can be a lot to swallow if you have difficulty swallowing pills in general. They aren’t too big, thankfully, but not tiny either. I usually took mine during breakfast, which was easy enough to incorporate into my routine.
Also, quick note that they do have a Prenatal Powder option, which is a great option for people who cannot handle swallowing pills.
What I like:
In addition to the things I already mentioned (third-party testing, etc.), here are the things I like about these supplements from a user perspective:
They are soy-free. (I’m allergic to soy so I try to avoid it where possible.)
They’re encapsulated in those little vegetable tubes, rather than in a compressed powder form. (As someone who still struggles to swallow pills at times, this is really nice. The compressed vitamins from other brands can quickly lose their coating and release horrible flavors in my mouth before I have the chance to swallow them, making me gag and sometimes even having to throw them away because I can’t handle the taste. Capsules save me from that experience.)
I also appreciate that they contain methylfolate (the active form of folate) rather than folic acid (which is synthetically derived and requires your body to convert it into active form).
Folate is essential for neural tube development in the earliest stages of development, so this was a high priority to me.
(And as a bit of a side note, this was actually one of the main reasons Perelel was started. One of the cofounders had the MTHFR gene where she couldn’t convert folic acid to folate and her child was born with a cleft lip because of it. That’s why she founded Perelel.)
What I don’t like:
Honestly, I was disappointed that these pills do in fact have a slight fishy taste. I suspect this was due to the prenatals being stored together with the Omega DHA + EPA capsules in the pouches. The taste isn’t overpowering, but it’s definitely noticeable and off-putting to me.
I also found that the Omega DHA + EPA capsule causes me to burp a fishy taste in my mouth for a couple of hours after taking it, which is not a pleasant experience.
These were not dealbreakers for me personally because that’s just par for the course with naturally sourced DHA. But it is something to be aware of, especially because the same is true for the Omega DHA + EPA capsules in the First Trimester Pack, which may not be tolerable for some when nausea is at an all-time high.
An Important FYI re: CoQ10 during Pregnancy
I became pregnant while I was taking these pills. Something I wish was made more clear on Perelel’s website was that one of the ingredients in the Conception Support Pack, CoQ10, hasn’t been well studied for safety during pregnancy.
Most of the strong CoQ10 data lives in the preconception window, not pregnancy itself.
Perelel’s website says to order the 1st Trimester Pack as soon as you find out you’re pregnant and keep taking the Conception Support Pack until it arrives in the mail.
But they don’t explicitly mention anything about taking CoQ10 during pregnancy.
I’m the kind of person who likes to stretch my dollar, so I was prepared to finish off the remaining Conception Support Packs before starting the 1st Trimester pack, but then I decided to research the ingredients just in case. I felt taken aback to learn that CoQ10 isn’t recommended during pregnancy due to the lack of data. But nothing I could find on Perelel’s website explicitly explains that.
When I reached out to Perelel to ask for clarity about this here’s what they told me:
“CoQ10 is a compound the body makes naturally. It’s found in every cell, in the diet, and even in breast milk. A published safety review established a safe intake level of 1,200 mg/day. The Conception Support Pack contains 50 mg, about 4% of that. And in a placebo-controlled clinical trial, 235 pregnant women took 200 mg/day (4x our dose) from mid-pregnancy through delivery with no maternal or fetal adverse events.
The cautionary language you found reflects limited large-scale pregnancy trials, not evidence of harm. Our transition guidance of continuing the Conception Support Pack briefly until the First Trimester Pack arrives, involves a short window at a dose well below what’s been studied in pregnancy, and was developed by our OB-GYN team.”
Ultimately, I’m sure that no harm was done, but I still would have liked more clarity about this on Perelel’s website so I could make an informed decision for my pregnancy. As always, you (and your doc) can decide what’s best for you!
My Thoughts on the Fertility+ Support
I also tried the Fertility+ Support antioxidant blend capsule. This is an additional supplement that you can add to the Conception Support Pack (or Men’s Multi Support Pack).
Each daily dose includes:
- 600 mg N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine (NAC)
- 300 mg Açaí Berry Powder
- 100 mg CoQ10
These antioxidants are meant to reduce inflammation and improve reproductive health. They can be taken by both men and women for an added boost.
At $39.95 per month with a subscription, one bottle contains 60 capsules. The serving size is two capsules, which means if you decide to add this to your routine, you’ll be taking six pills a day. They’re also on the larger size for a capsule (see photo comparing them to the Core Prenatal and CoQ10 + Folate capsules). I just wanted to note this because if you struggle to swallow pills, that may prove to be a little more difficult.
As for my experience, I didn’t take these for long enough to detect any difference in my body, so I honestly don’t have much to report about this supplement. That doesn’t mean they weren’t doing any good, though! The formulation is meant to help with egg health, which is not something I’d necessarily notice.
One positive that I can tell you is that they didn’t taste fishy since they were packaged separately from the Omega DHA + EPA capsules.
*Note that Perelel includes a disclaimer to consult your medical provider before taking these when pregnant or breastfeeding. Again, they contain CoQ10, so that’s something to be aware of.
My Husband’s Review of the Men’s Multi Support Pack
My husband also tried the Men’s Multi Support Pack for about two months.
Similar to the Conception Support Pack, each Men’s Multi Support Pack contains a one month supply of pill packs; each pill pack has:
- two multivitamins
- one Omega DHA + EPA capsule
- a CoQ10 + Folate capsule
I’m happy to say that after about one week, he detected a noticeable improvement in his energy levels — subtle, but definitely improved.
He experiences little to no brain fog when he wakes up in the morning and feels better focused at work when he takes these supplements. (I can’t say for sure, but I believe this may be credited at least in part to the CoQ10 supplement.)
The fact that he noticed anything at all impressed me, as I don’t believe he was expecting to experience any positive benefits from taking multivitamins.
He does also occasionally have fishy burps from the Omega DHA + EPA capsule, but it doesn’t bother him. He doesn’t detect a fishy taste in the rest of his pill pack. (This could be because he can swallow them all in one handful with a sip of water, whereas I have to take one pill at a time with a bite of food in order to swallow mine, thus magnifying the taste for me.)
(As a side note, I am glad to see more attention being paid to the role that men’s health plays in pre-conception these days!)
Would I buy any of these again?
Maybe! I like the convenience of the Conception Support Packs and the targeted nutritional support for the “trying to conceive” stage. But I think I’d be more inclined to take a less fishy-tasting (and less expensive) prenatal vitamin, especially since the “trying to conceive” stage can last for months or even years.
I should caveat that I may not be the ideal target audience for this product. If I were on the older side, dealing with fertility issues, or planning to freeze my eggs, I think I’d potentially see more benefits and be more enthusiastic about these supplements. As a woman in her early thirties without a history of fertility issues, I don’t feel particularly inclined to choose these supplements over a less expensive prenatal vitamin.
While I did end up becoming pregnant while I was taking these supplements (🙌), I don’t believe that could be attributed to the supplements themselves, as I only just began taking them the week I conceived. That doesn’t mean they weren’t helping, but I can’t honestly give them credit for that, either.
My husband saw noticeable improvement with the Men’s Multi Support Pack, though, so I’d be more inclined to re-purchase it for him.
I am currently taking Perelel’s 1st Trimester Pack, so stay tuned for more thoughts on that!
P.S. Don’t forget to use the code THEFILTERY20 for 20% off (if you’re a first-time customer).
