By Krista Maas de Villiers, BSc Dietetics, Founder of Nunona
We’ve been taught to judge a prenatal by its label. Does it have enough folate? Iron? Choline? DHA? What percentage of the Daily Value does it provide?
Those questions matter. But there’s another question we rarely ask: Does it actually nourish you?
A conventional prenatal can deliver a long list of micronutrients. But pregnancy and postpartum are whole-body nutritional events. Your body also needs protein, healthy fats, carbohydrates, fiber, and adequate energy to grow, build, regulate, recover, and, for many women, produce breastmilk. Pregnancy and lactation both increase the body’s energy demands.¹
Nourishment is about more than hitting nutrient targets.
What’s on the Label Isn’t Necessarily What Your Body Can Use
As we explored in How Vitamins Became Pills—And Why We’re Going Back to Food, the ability to isolate and manufacture individual vitamins transformed nutrition. It made specific nutrients stable, measurable, and widely available.
But the amount of a nutrient listed on a label and the amount your body ultimately absorbs and can use are not necessarily the same thing.
Bioavailability can be influenced by the chemical form of a nutrient, what it is consumed with, interactions with other nutrients, and individual physiology. Different supplemental forms of the same nutrient can also behave differently. For example, a comparative study of commercial magnesium preparations found magnesium oxide had substantially lower bioavailability than magnesium chloride, lactate, and aspartate.²
So 100% on the label doesn’t necessarily mean 100% in your body. The science is more nuanced than that. What it tells us is that nutrient form and context matter.
We explore this more deeply in Absorption Over Excess: Why More Isn’t Always Better in Prenatal Nutrition.
Nutrients Don’t Exist in Isolation in Food
In food, nutrients arrive within a complex matrix of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, fiber, and other food components. The structure and composition of that matrix can influence digestion, nutrient release, and bioavailability.³,⁴
We see this in familiar nutritional interactions. Vitamin C can enhance the absorption of non-heme iron, while dietary fat plays an important role in the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins.⁴,⁵
For more on the distinction between isolated and food-derived nutrients, read Real vs. Synthetic Nutritional Supplements: Why What You Take Matters.
Even Perfect Absorption Wouldn’t Equal Nourishment
There’s an even bigger limitation to the prenatal pill.
Imagine every micronutrient in your prenatal were perfectly absorbed. You would still get essentially no protein, healthy fats, complex carbohydrates, fiber, or meaningful energy from it.
Yet the maternal body needs all of them.
Protein supplies amino acids needed for growth and tissue building. Fats provide energy and essential fatty acids. Carbohydrates provide energy, while fiber supports digestive and metabolic health. The combination of macronutrients and fiber in a meal can also influence the post-meal blood glucose response.⁶
Nutrition matters for hormone function, too. Hormones don’t exist independently of the nutrients we consume. Iodine, for example, is an essential component of the thyroid hormones T4 and T3, while micronutrients including selenium, zinc, iron, and vitamin A are involved in processes related to thyroid hormone synthesis and metabolism.⁷,⁸
Providing the body with nutrients required for normal hormone production, metabolism, and function is an important part of nourishment.
That’s the difference between delivering nutrients and nourishing a body.
What Nourishment Looks Like
Nunona Mama Bites were created around this more complete definition of maternal nutrition.
Four daily bites deliver 27+ essential micronutrients alongside protein, healthy fats, carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber, prebiotic support, DHA, choline, and real food energy, made from real, organic ingredients.
Micronutrients are still essential. We haven’t removed the science behind the prenatal, we’ve expanded what a prenatal can provide.
Because the maternal body isn’t a checklist of nutrient targets. It’s a living system building, adapting, regulating, and recovering through one of the most nutritionally demanding periods of a woman’s life.
A pill delivers nutrients. Nunona delivers nourishment.
About the Author
Krista Maas de Villiers, BSc Dietetics, is the Founder & CEO of Nunona, a modern nutrition platform supporting maternal and infant health across the first 1,000 days—from preconception through postpartum and baby’s first foods.
Nunona launched with a first-of-its-kind real-food pre+postnatal vitamin designed to improve absorption, reduce nausea, and deliver meaningful outcomes for both moms and babies.
Backed by experts in science, nutrition, and consumer health, Nunona aims to bridge the gap between research and real life—translating complex nutritional science into accessible, effective solutions for modern families.
References
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Butte NF, King JC. Energy requirements during pregnancy and lactation. Public Health Nutr. 2005;8(7A):1010-1027. doi:10.1079/PHN2005793.
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Firoz M, Graber M. Bioavailability of US commercial magnesium preparations. Magnes Res. 2001;14(4):257-262.
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Capuano E, Pellegrini N. An integrated look at the effect of structure on nutrient bioavailability in plant foods. J Sci Food Agric. 2019;99(2):493-498. doi:10.1002/jsfa.9298.
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Tan Y, McClements DJ. Improving the bioavailability of oil-soluble vitamins by optimizing food matrix effects: a review. Food Chem. 2021;348:129148. doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2021.129148.
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Hurrell R, Egli I. Iron bioavailability and dietary reference values. Am J Clin Nutr. 2010;91(5):1461S-1467S. doi:10.3945/ajcn.2010.28674F.
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Meng H, Matthan NR, Ausman LM, Lichtenstein AH. Effect of macronutrients and fiber on postprandial glycemic responses and meal glycemic index and glycemic load value determinations. Am J Clin Nutr. 2017;105(4):842-853. doi:10.3945/ajcn.116.144162.
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O’Kane SM, Mulhern MS, Pourshahidi LK, Strain JJ, Yeates AJ. Micronutrients, iodine status and concentrations of thyroid hormones: a systematic review. Nutr Rev. 2018;76(6):418-431. doi:10.1093/nutrit/nuy008.
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National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements. Iodine: Fact Sheet for Health Professionals.