Why Most Prenatals Are Like Ordering Off the Kids' Menu (And What I Did About It)

Partnership Disclosure:

A quick note before we dive in: This post is sponsored by Needed, and I'm compensated for this partnership. If you know anything about me, I don't partner with brands I don't genuinely believe in. I've been part of Needed's research and development team, helping formulate products like their Prenatal Multivitamin, their Egg Quality Support and Sperm Support+, Stress Support, and so much more. Everything I share here reflects my actual clinical experience and what I recommend to my patients every single day. These are my beliefs, backed by years of practice and the labs I run regularly. I wouldn't put my name on something I don't stand behind 100%.

Okay, let's get into it…

Let's be honest: if you're reading this, you probably already take a prenatal. Or you've been told you should. Or you're staring at seventeen different bottles on Amazon wondering which one won't make you nauseous and actually contains the “right” stuff.

Here's what most people don't know: most prenatals on the market are designed to meet the bare minimum requirements. They're like ordering off the kids' menu when your body is training for a marathon. Sure, chicken fingers and fries will keep you alive, but they're not going to fuel what your body actually needs.

I've spent years running labs on women who are "doing everything right"—taking their prenatal, eating well, sleeping enough—and still showing up with low vitamin D, insufficient B12, or magnesium levels that make me want to hand them a supplement and a nap.

That's why when Needed asked me to help formulate their supplements, I said yes. Not because I needed another thing on my plate, but because I was tired of seeing patients on terrible prenatal formulations and recommending products that were just ok when I knew we could do better.

Let's Talk About What "Nutritional Depletion" Actually Means

Nutritional depletion isn't some trendy wellness term. It's what happens when your body's nutrient demands exceed what you're taking in. And guess what? Pregnancy, breastfeeding, and postpartum are three of the most nutritionally demanding stages of a woman's life.

Growing a human requires:

• More folate (for neural tube development)
• More iron (your blood volume increases by 50%)
• More calcium and magnesium (for bone development and hundreds of enzymatic reactions)
• More omega-3s (for brain and eye development)
• More vitamin D, B vitamins, zinc, iodine, choline... the list goes on.

And if you're breastfeeding? Your body prioritizes your baby's nutrient needs over your own. So if you're not replenishing what you're giving, you become the depleted one.

Your body is incredibly generous. It will give everything it has to your baby, even if that means pulling from your own stores. And if those stores weren't great to begin with (hello, years on birth control, chronic stress, or a gut that doesn't absorb nutrients well), you're starting at a deficit.

I see this clinically all the time. Women come in postpartum with:

• Hair falling out in clumps
• Energy so low they can barely function
• Mood swings that feel unmanageable
• Thyroid issues that seem to come out of nowhere

And when we run labs? Low iron. Low vitamin D. Low B12. Magnesium could use a pick me up.

This is nutritional depletion in action.

Three Women Walk Into My Office (Hypothetically Speaking)

Let me paint you a picture. These are just examples of women that could be in Womanhood Wellness or a 1:1 of mine. They are not real people.

Meet "Sarah"

Sarah is 34, been trying to conceive for 18 months. She's tracking her cycle, timing intercourse perfectly, taking a prenatal that claims to have everything in 1 pill a day! When I run labs, her vitamin D is at 22 ng/mL (I want to see at least 40-50 for fertility), her ferritin (iron storage) is at 15 (optimal for fertility is closer to 50-100), and her omega-3 index is low. She also had low iodine that was impacting her thyroid, a key part of optimal fertility. 

She's doing something, but her prenatal is not supporting her in the way a prenatal could or should because:

1. The vitamin D dose is too low (400 IU when she needs closer to 2,000-4,000 IU)
2. The iron is in a form her body doesn't absorb well and it’s combined with other nutrients in the “1 pill a day”
3. Her iodine was sub-optimal, impacting her thyroid 
4. There are no omega-3s in her supplement routine at all (to be clear, Needed doses their Omega 3’s separate from the prenatal…because that is the best way to do it)

Sarah isn't broken. Her diet + supplement support just isn't doing its job.

Meet "Jessica"

Jessica is pregnant with her second baby. She felt great during her first pregnancy but this time? Exhausted. Nauseous. Brain fog. She stopped taking her prenatal because it made her feel worse.

When we dig in, her prenatal contains synthetic folic acid (which about 40% of people don't methylate well due to MTHFR variants), plus a bunch of fillers and binders that are irritating her already-sensitive gut.

She needs options that work and that she can actually take when she cannot even imagine swallowing 1 pill, let alone more than that. Needed has the option to choose between a comprehensive capsule option, an essential 2 capsule option, or a tasty powder that you can put in a drink if the pills are just too hard during that 1st trimester.

Meet "Maya"

Maya is 6 months postpartum, still nursing, and feeling like a shell of herself. She's crying more than she thinks is normal, her hair is falling out, and she has zero libido (not that she has energy for sex anyway).

She stopped her prenatal after giving birth because "the baby is here now, so I don't need it anymore," which is what a lot of women think.

But here's the thing: postpartum is when your body is trying to recover from the most nutritionally demanding event of your life. If you're breastfeeding, you're still giving nutrients away every single day. Stopping your prenatal at birth is like finishing a marathon and deciding you don't need water anymore.

Maya's labs show severe vitamin D deficiency, low B12 and B6 (hello, mood and energy), and her magnesium is tanked. Her body has been running on fumes.

Why I Said Yes to Formulating With Needed

Needed is different.

I have been working with Needed since their early conception and they continue to be my favorite brand on the market. Some of the reasons why are: 

• Evidence-based dosages (not just "here's the RDA, good luck")
• Bioavailable forms of nutrients (methylated B vitamins, chelated minerals, the forms your body can actually use)
• Transparency (third-party tested, clean ingredients, no shady fillers)
• Practitioner-trusted (over 10,000 practitioners recommend them, and that number keeps growing)

When they asked me to help formulate their Prenatal and later many of their Fertility and Women’s health products, I was all in. I was so excited to be working with a company who was finally creating supplements that actually addressed the gaps I was seeing in my practice every single day.

Needed recently completed an IRB-approved clinical study on the Needed Prenatal Multi, and the results were exactly what we suspected: women taking Needed had significantly higher blood levels of key nutrients—vitamin D, B6, B12, riboflavin, K2, and selenium—compared to women taking a standard prenatal. Only the Needed group reached sufficient vitamin D levels.

This is what "beyond the bare minimum" looks like.

The Prenatal Is Just One Piece (But It Better Be the Right Shape)

Here's the thing I tell every patient: supplements are not magic pills.

If you're eating fast food every day, never get within 6 feet of a vegetable or high quality protein, are chronically stressed, not sleeping, and living in a toxic environment, no prenatal is going to fix that. You can't out-supplement a terrible lifestyle..

Your health is a puzzle made up of:

• Nutrition (real food, not just supplements)
• Stress management (your cortisol affects literally everything)
• Sleep (non-negotiable for hormone balance)
• Gut health (if you can't absorb nutrients, it doesn't matter what you take)
• Toxin exposure (see my favorite low-tox products page for favorite swaps) 
• Movement (your body needs to move to function well)
• Genetics (some of us need more of certain nutrients due to gene variants)
• Supplements (the final piece that fills in gaps)

But here's the key: you wouldn't want a puzzle piece with a missing side, would you?

If you're doing all the things—eating well, managing stress, prioritizing sleep—and then taking a prenatal that's underdosed, poorly absorbed, or full of synthetic forms your body can't use, you're working with a broken puzzle piece.

It doesn't fit. It doesn't complete the picture.

That's why the quality of your prenatal matters. Not just that you're taking one, but that it's actually designed to support what your body needs during the most demanding stages of your life.

I was tired of recommending five different supplement brands to make up one prenatal because no single brand had it all.

Needed changed that for me, and for my patients.

Whether you're trying to conceive, currently pregnant, or navigating postpartum (and especially if you're breastfeeding), your body deserves more than the bare minimum. It deserves nutrients in forms you can actually absorb, in dosages that make a measurable difference, from a brand that gives a damn about quality.

If you're ready to upgrade from the kids' menu, check out Needed's full line at www.thisisneeded.com/drleah. If you use my link, you'll get a discount!

Your body is doing incredible things. Give it the support it actually needs.

**These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.