Dietary supplement use immediately before and during pregnancy in Norwegian women with eating disorders

Many pregnant women use dietary supplements. Little is known about dietary supplement use during pregnancy in women with eating disorders.

We examined dietary supplement use in 37,307 pregnant women, from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study.

Dietary supplement use during pregnancy was as follows: 91.2% of women with anorexia nervosa, 92.2% of women with bulimia nervosa, 93.2% of women with eating disorder not otherwise specified-purging subtype (EDNOS-P), 90.6% of women with binge eating disorder, and 93.5% of the women without eating disorders. Between group differences were not statistically significant. After adjusting for covariates, women with EDNOS-P were more likely to take iron containing supplements (p ≤ .04).

Overall dietary supplement use in this sample is similar in women with and without eating disorders.