“First of all.... 4 BIG PILLS a day?? How is this helping busy people on the go? Furthermore I found the pills smell terrible and really gave me quite bad indigestion. I have to be really careful about when I take them, it has to be immediately after a morning meal (no other time worked for me) even taking them one hour after a meal would give me terrible stomach pains with the smell of the pills repeating on me for hours. As far as I'm concerned you're not really solving a problem here; yes I get you put lots of good quality ingredients into the pills, but they are a.) harder to take b.) not enjoyable to take and c.) 3x the cost of the market leaders. I can't say I feel any different taking these than when I took your bog standard Pregnacare and at least those never smelled, never caused indigestion and were easy to take (only one) anytime of day or night. I really want to support your woman led mission here, but you have to give us more for the money.”
Hi Annie,
Thanks for taking the time to leave us this feedback although we’re sorry you feel the way you do.
Equi's Pregnancy Formula is an advanced daily capsule combination that has been expertly formulated to be taken for fertility and preconception, through to conception, pregnancy and motherhood/breastfeeding. We do appreciate that four capsules each day might seem quite high but it has been designed because there both was and is nothing on the market of its quality. If you were to take just one capsule, it wouldn’t have within it anywhere near the quantities of ingredients our expert research recommends. Furthermore, if one was to compare Pregnancy with other similarly natured products available, there are a lot of differences, and this helps explain why we have some of the best fertility specialists and nutritionists recommending it to their clients.
As with all of our formulas, we only use premium ingredients, and this is just one of many reasons how we differ to the likes of Pregnacare. Our products really do make such a difference, and, in the example of our Pregnancy Formula, this difference is not only to you but to baby too. To be more specific:
• We only use the most absorbable forms of vitamins and minerals in our formulas, for example we prefer to use calcium ascorbate, not ascorbic acid for vitamin C.
• We use chelated, bioavailable forms of minerals - these are made by a company in the USA called Albion who specialise in researching bio-availability (these are the TRAACs minerals you will see on the label).
• We use 5-methytetrahydrofolate (400mcg) as folate, not folic acid, and methyl-cobalamin for B12. All our B vitamins are also in the most active forms.
• We use a chelated form of iron (ferrous bisglycinate) called Ferrochel®️ which is well absorbed and doesn't cause the typical gastro-related side effects such as nausea or constipation. Women are at risk of iron deficiency during pregnancy and afterwards, so this was really important to us.
• We add 1000iu of vitamin D, as vegan D3.
• We add in choline in the form of VitaCholine®️.
• We add co-q-10 to support fertility.
• We add in K2 rather than K1.
• We don't add fillers, binders or chemicals to the formulas and we use vegan capsule shells that are made from cellulose.
If you haven't already, please do check out the Science dropdown on the Pregnancy Formula page. Please do also see this link about how to get the best from the formula along with some dietary advice for fertility too.
https://equilondon.com/blogs/equilife/pregnancy-formula
We understand too that there can on occasions be what could be described as an off-putting smell, however it is very common for supplements to be a bit smelly, especially when decent quantities of the ingredients within them have been used. This is particularly the case with B vitamins, and the strength of it is made worse because they’re not packed in blister packs or tiny pouches, which would mask the smell better. We have of course made the conscious decision to use recyclable materials and not used extra packaging which would negatively impact the environment. We are looking for ways to avoid this without changing the high quality ingredients within the formula, however we don't want to do a flavoured option as this would mean adding more ingredients that aren’t needed or beneficial to the body.
Hope this explains a bit more from our side and if we can do more, please let us know.
Wishing you all the very best with your pregnancy!!
