By Krista Maas de Villiers, BSc Dietetics, Founder of Nunona
I spent 15 years working in infant nutrition, leading a global formula brand. I understood, better than most, what the science said: that what an infant consumes in its first years of life shapes its long-term health. I believed in that work. And then I became pregnant for the first time, and the blinders came off. What I had spent a career building for the infant, nobody had built for the mother. I’m not talking about a synthetic pill or a protein shake. I’m talking about something designed with the same rigor, the same science, the same conviction that my colleagues applied to infant formula. We knew that what a mother consumed from conception through postpartum was directly shaping her child’s future, directly building their cells that would become their brain, their immune system, their body. Why didn’t we help her get what she needed? When I became the consumer, even as a dietitian, I realised how hard it was to eat well during pregnancy and postpartum. How the market showed up for babies, but forgot the most important part of the equation. That is why I built Nunona.
The First 1000 Days Belong to Both of You
You have probably heard of the First 1000 Days. It is the window from conception to your child’s second birthday, and it is widely recognized as the most nutritionally critical period in human development. What happens in this window shapes brain development, immune function, metabolic health, and long-term wellbeing in ways that no intervention later in life can replicate.
Here is what is rarely said alongside that statistic: maternal nutrition is directly responsible for approximately half of it. Nine months of pregnancy plus the months you spend breastfeeding accounts for roughly 50% of the First 1000 Days. Mothers are not bystanders to their child’s nutritional programming. They are the primary vehicle for it. What you eat during pregnancy reaches your baby through the placenta. What you consume while breastfeeding reaches your baby through your milk. DHA supports fetal brain development and reduces your own risk of postnatal depression.1 Micronutrients transfer directly. The mother is not separate from the nutritional equation. She is the equation.
We Built a $100 Billion Industry for One Half of the Equation
The global infant formula market is worth over $100 billion. It was built on a correct and important premise: that early nutrition determines lifelong health outcomes. That same premise applies with equal force to the mother from the moment of conception. And yet the category built to support her barely exists. Maternal nutrition accounts for approximately 50% of the First 1000 Days and roughly 1% of the market share. We have overlooked the mother. In doing so, we have undernourished the infant.
A Prenatal Vitamin Is Not Enough
Most pregnant women are doing exactly what they are recommended. They are taking their prenatal vitamins. And they are still nutrient deficient.
A cross-sectional analysis of 1,003 pregnant US women published in JAMA Network Open found that even among women taking dietary supplements, the majority fell below recommended intakes for key nutrients including vitamins A, C, D, E, and K, as well as folate, iron, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and zinc.2 Supplement use increased intake, but could not close the gap. In some cases it created a new problem: excess folic acid and iron consumption among supplement users, with associated health risks.
A synthetic pill cannot replicate what real food delivers. Bioavailability, nutrient cofactors, the way nutrients work together in whole food form — these are not things a capsule can manufacture. The women doing everything right were still not getting what they needed, because the product designed to help them was not designed well enough.
Mama Bites Were Built to Close This Gap
Mama Bites were built for the half of the First 1000 Days that has always been overlooked. A real food pre and postnatal vitamin bite with 27 essential micronutrients at approximately 100% of the recommended daily intake, 200mg DHA, balanced protein, healthy fats, fiber, and complex carbohydrates. Because real food delivers what synthetic supplementation cannot. Because the mother building the next generation deserves a product built with the same intention, the same conviction as the products built for the infant she is carrying. And even when she is no longer nourishing them directly, we will continue to nourish her.
Maternal nutrition is infant nutrition. It has always been. It is time someone showed up for her.
References
1. Middleton P, Gomersall JC, Gould JF, Shepherd E, Olsen SF, Makrides M. Omega-3 fatty acid addition during pregnancy. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2018;11(11):CD003402. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD003402.pub3
2. Bailey RL, Pac SG, Fulgoni VL III, Reidy KC, Catalano PM. Estimation of total usual dietary intakes of pregnant women in the United States. JAMA Netw Open. 2019;2(6):e195967. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.5967
