@thegabbasaur's prenatal pregnancy claims, fact-checked

What did @thegabbasaur actually say?

She credited a specific prenatal vitamin, Nature's Mane, with helping her conceive twice after switching away from it and struggling for five months. Her claim is careful in one way: she explicitly says she's not sponsored and acknowledges the vitamin "doesn't have everything that you probably need" once pregnant. But the core message is hard to miss: this prenatal worked like a fertility pill for her, and she wants other women on a TTC journey to know about it.

She describes two pregnancies that ended in miscarriage at 11 weeks each, then a third pregnancy, currently ongoing with a healthy baby. She attributes the conception pattern directly to which prenatal she was taking. She also notes that doctors generally recommend starting a prenatal before conception, which is accurate and worth separating from her bigger claim.

Does the science back this up?

Not in the way she implies. No published clinical trial has shown that any specific over-the-counter prenatal brand improves conception rates over another. What the science does support is that adequate folate, ideally started before conception, reduces neural tube defect risk. That is not the same as boosting fertility.

A 2022 review in Nutrients (Greenberg et al.) found that preconception micronutrient status, particularly folate, iron, and iodine, matters for fetal development but did not find that supplementation increased probability of conception in ovulating women. A separate 2020 cohort study in Human Reproduction (Gaskins et al.) examined prenatal supplement use and time-to-pregnancy and found no statistically significant reduction in time-to-pregnancy for women using prenatal vitamins versus folic acid alone.

Two consecutive miscarriages followed by a successful pregnancy is also a recognized pattern in recurrent pregnancy loss. The spontaneous live birth rate after two losses is estimated at 60-75% (ACOG Practice Bulletin 200, 2018), meaning many women would have conceived successfully regardless of which supplement they took.

What did they get right (or wrong)?

Credit where it is due: she did not oversell this as a cure. She said "I promise you, I'm not sponsored" and flagged that the prenatal lacks complete pregnancy nutrition. That is honest, and it separates her from the worst influencer supplement content out there.

But the attribution error here is real. She is describing a post hoc reasoning fallacy: she took Supplement A, got pregnant, switched to Supplement B, did not get pregnant as quickly, went back to Supplement A, got pregnant. That is not evidence Supplement A caused conception. Human fertility is cyclical, variable, and shaped by dozens of factors including stress, cycle timing, partner factors, and plain statistical probability. Five months of trying is not a long TTC timeline by clinical standards. ACOG defines infertility as 12 months of unprotected intercourse without conception in women under 35.

She also does not mention her miscarriages were likely unrelated to prenatal brand, which matters. Chromosomal abnormalities account for roughly 50% of first-trimester losses (Larsen et al., 2013, Human Reproduction Update). No prenatal prevents that.

What should you actually know?

Start a prenatal before you start trying. That part of the advice is solid, and most OBs and reproductive endocrinologists agree. Folate needs to be on board before conception to reduce neural tube defect risk in the first weeks of pregnancy, often before a woman knows she is pregnant. The CDC and ACOG both recommend 400-800 mcg of folic acid daily starting at least one month before conception.

Beyond folate, the evidence for other prenatal ingredients, things like DHA, choline, and iodine, is about fetal development, not conception. If your current prenatal is missing key nutrients, your provider can recommend what to add. That decision should be based on your bloodwork and medical history, not a TikTok comparison.

If you have experienced two or more miscarriages, that warrants a clinical conversation about recurrent pregnancy loss, not a supplement switch. Testing for chromosomal, uterine, and clotting factors is the appropriate next step. A prenatal vitamin, regardless of brand, is not a substitute for that workup.