By Krista Maas de Villiers, BSc Dietetics, Founder of Nunona
Motherhood is not a wellness journey. It is the longest, most demanding endurance event a human body will ever undertake, and it requires performance nutrition for preparation, pregnancy and postpartum to match it. From the first trimester through breastfeeding, your body is running at a biological intensity comparable to that of endurance athletes, without the performance nutrition framework required to optimise it, nourish it, and program better outcomes for both you and your baby.
That changes now.
What the Perinatal Body Is Actually Doing
Consider what is happening inside your body during pregnancy. Your heart increases its output by up to 50% to meet the demands of the growing fetus.¹ Your brain undergoes structural reorganisation comparable in scale to adolescent development.² Your liver, kidneys, and lungs all increase their functional capacity. And throughout all of it, your body is simultaneously building an entirely new human being from scratch, synthesising fetal tissue, growing the placenta, and establishing the neurological architecture that will shape your child's cognitive development for life.
Postpartum, the demands shift but do not diminish. Breastfeeding alone requires an additional 400-500 calories per day above baseline.³ Your body is producing milk, regulating hormones across one of the most complex transitions in human biology, and attempting neurological recovery from the cognitive restructuring of pregnancy, all while running on disrupted sleep and the full weight of new parenthood.
These are not general health considerations. They are measurable performance demands, each with a specific and quantifiable nutritional need.
What Perinatal Performance Nutrition Actually Requires
The fuel requirements of your body during this time are specific. Protein and fat together support blood sugar regulation and muscle function throughout the extended physical demands of pregnancy and the postpartum period.⁴
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Two hundred milligrams of DHA daily supports fetal brain development and is associated with a reduced risk of postnatal depression.⁵ ⁶ Consistent micronutrient delivery across the full perinatal window supports hormonal regulation. Fiber supports gut health and nutrient absorption, and plays a meaningful role in satiety at a time when your body's caloric and energy demands are elevated.
That last point matters more than it is usually given credit for. Pregnancy and breastfeeding significantly increase your caloric and macronutrient requirements. More energy. More protein. More fat. More of everything. Your body is not running on maintenance mode. It is running a performance event that demands consistent, real-food energy to sustain it.
These are not optional additions to a prenatal health routine. They are the nutritional requirements of one of the most demanding physiological states your body can enter.
Why a Pill Was Never Nutrition
For decades, the standard response to the nutritional demands of pregnancy has been a synthetic prenatal vitamin. A capsule containing isolated micronutrient compounds, zero calories, zero macronutrients, zero fiber, and zero DHA from a real food source.
A pill is a delivery mechanism. It is not nutrition. And at the precise moment your body requires more energy than at any other point in your life, handing you a synthetic capsule with no nourishment is not support. It's a band-aid.
A pill delivers nutrients. Nunona delivers nourishment.
Real food is functional nutrition. It delivers micronutrients alongside the macronutrients, fiber, and calories your body needs to absorb and actually use them. Protein, fat, carbs and fiber. Calories that fuel the event rather than simply checking a micronutrient box. A pill cannot do any of that.
Mama Bites were built around this understanding. Each bite delivers 27 essential micronutrients at approximately 100% RDI, 200mg of real-food DHA, 8g of protein, healthy fats, complex carbohydrates, 5g of fiber, choline for fetal brain and nervous system development,7 and prebiotic support for gut health. Not as a supplement. As perinatal performance nutrition, made from organic whole food ingredients, calibrated to what two bodies are actually doing at once.
Motherhood has always required this. Nunona is the first brand building it.
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
1. Sanghavi M, Rutherford JD. Cardiovascular physiology of pregnancy. Circulation. 2014;130(12):1003-1008.
2. Hoekzema E, Barba-Muller E, Pozzobon C, et al. Pregnancy leads to long-lasting changes in human brain structure. Nat Neurosci. 2017;20(2):287-296.
3. Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Nutritional Status During Pregnancy and Lactation. Nutrition During Lactation. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 1991.
4. Sweeting A, Wong J, Murphy HR, Ross GP. A clinical update on gestational diabetes mellitus. Endocr Rev. 2022;43(5):763-793.
5. Coletta JM, Bell SJ, Roman AS. Omega-3 fatty acids and pregnancy. Rev Obstet Gynecol. 2010;3(4):163-171.
6. Sontrop J, Campbell MK. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and depression: a review of the evidence and a methodological critique. Prev Med. 2006;42(1):4-13.
7. Caudill MA, Strupp BJ, Muscalu L, Nevins JEH, Canfield RL. Maternal choline supplementation during the third trimester of pregnancy improves infant information processing speed: a randomized, double-blind, controlled feeding study. FASEB J. 2018;32(4):2172-2180.
