Safety

Can you take creatine while pregnant?

By GyroscopeUpdated November 14, 20263 sources

There isn’t enough research in pregnancy or breastfeeding to give a dose, so we don’t. Researchers are interested in creatine in pregnancy, mostly from animal studies, and human trials haven’t been done yet. Ask your doctor or midwife before you take it, and tell them if you were taking it before you got pregnant.

If you search this, you’ll find two kinds of answers. Some say creatine is a lifting supplement and obviously off limits. Others say it may help the baby, and point to research that sounds promising. Both sound confident, and neither is backed by a trial in pregnant women.

Why researchers are interested

There’s a real reason creatine comes up in pregnancy. The International Society of Sports Nutrition notes that the baby relies on the mother’s creatine, passed through the placenta, until late in pregnancy, and that the mother’s creatine making and use change as pregnancy goes on. A 2025 review of creatine in women’s health, led by Abbie Smith-Ryan, covers the research so far.

Most of what’s known comes from animals. In a spiny mouse model of birth asphyxia, mothers fed creatine from mid-pregnancy had pups that survived better, with healthier brains, kidneys and muscles. In unborn lambs, about 13 days of creatine raised the creatine in their brains by about 60%.

In people, the review says data on dosing and tolerability are only now being collected, to plan possible randomized trials later. So far nobody has run a trial that tells a pregnant woman how much to take, or shows it’s safe at the doses people use in the gym.

It’s like a new bridge that’s passed its engineering tests and hasn’t opened to traffic yet. The early results are good, and nobody has driven across it.

Breastfeeding

Creatine is already in breast milk. The 2025 review describes a study that found it highest in the first milk right after birth, then falling over the first two weeks. What nobody has studied is whether taking a supplement while breastfeeding changes that, or what it does for the baby. The reviews give no dose for breastfeeding.

If you already took some

If you took creatine before you knew you were pregnant, don’t panic. Tell your doctor or midwife what you took, how much and for how long. Your stores drift back to where they started over about a month after you stop.

Where the expert groups stand

• International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2017. Describes research interest in creatine during pregnancy, based mostly on animal studies, and gives no pregnancy dose.
• 2025 review of creatine in women’s health. Calls the evidence in pregnancy emerging, and says human data on dosing and tolerability are being collected to plan trials.
• 2021 review by creatine researchers. Gives no pregnancy dose.

Checked against these sources on November 14, 2026.