417 | Nutrition for Women: Not All Prenatals Are Equal with Julie Sawaya

[00:00:05] Welcome to the Optimal Body Podcast. I'm Dr. Jen and I'm Dr. Dom and we are doctors of physical therapy bringing you the body tips and physical therapy pearls of wisdom to help you begin to understand your body, relieve your pains and restrictions and answer your questions. Along with expert guests, our goal of the Optimal Body Podcast is really to help you discover what optimal means within your own body. Let's dive in.

[00:00:28] So excited to bring this next guest on. We have Julie Sawaya, who's the co-founder of Needed, a mama to three and a lifelong nutrition nerd. Julie studied the issue of nutritional access in college and received her master's in business from Stanford where she met her Needed co-founder Ryan. They dug into the research and realized 97% of women take a prenatal and yet 95% have nutrient deficiencies. Most prenatal vitamins just weren't cutting it. So Julie and Ryan started Needed to create a new diet.

[00:00:58] New higher standard for perinatal health working alongside a collective of more than 6,000 perinatal nutrition and health experts. Together they've redesigned the products, education and experiences women need. This interview is so powerful because it just really taps into the gaps in prenatal nutrition and prenatal vitamins. And I can't wait for you to hear it.

[00:01:21] Julie, thank you so much for taking your time and being with us today. I know you have a lot going on, especially in transitions and motherhood and business. So I just appreciate you taking the time to answer some questions about prenatals and about supplement and about nutrition and especially how it impacts women. I mean, this is a huge conversation and something that a lot of people I know have questions about. So I just appreciate you taking the time to be with us.

[00:01:48] Yeah. Well, thank you guys so much for having me. I'm excited. It's one of my passion topics. So really excited to share a little bit more. Yeah. And rightfully so, because I don't think you can spend five or 10 minutes on a social platform without having someone tell you that you need to be taking some certain supplement. Yeah. And there's so much information out there, good, bad and indifferent. What drew you into this arena wanting to start a prenatal company?

[00:02:17] Yeah. Well, it's a great question. And to be totally honest, I came at the category of supplements as a bit of a skeptic. You know, I very much, my co-founder Ryan and I are both trained nutritionists, but found the problem that needed a solving through our own experiences.

[00:02:41] We did nutrient testing that showed us that we were both massively depleted in not just one. I remember seeing the lab results and I was like, I don't even know how to interpret this. Like, are you telling me that I should be supplementing for all of these ingredients? Or like, where do I even start? Because there was probably like 12 of the 15 nutrients I was tested for I was deficient in.

[00:03:06] And this was for both Ryan and myself. It was prior to us trying to conceive and beginning that whole journey to motherhood. But it was really eye-opening because we were the most nutritionally aware of our friends. We were the ones who were like, we're shopping at the farmer's market and preparing our own foods and really trying to follow a food first approach to nutrition.

[00:03:31] And, you know, very much it needed. We believe like you cannot out supplement a bad diet. Food really matters. But what we found through our own experiences, which led us down a rabbit hole of understanding the research and talking to women's health practitioners that test women's nutrient levels,

[00:03:47] is that the vast majority of women in this country are deficient in key nutrients despite what they may do, which includes in the case of pregnancy, fertility, pregnancy and postpartum, 97% of women take a prenatal vitamin and yet 95% are left depleted. And that is just staggering. It's a staggering. It's a staggering deficiency. So I would say that I have always had a passion for nutrition.

[00:04:17] I've always had a passion for health, especially for women's health. And I've always thought about and kind of dreamed about starting a company, but I never would have thought it would be a supplement company. I really feel like the problem found us and that once we realized how widespread this problem was, we couldn't not do something about it, including starting starting a supplement company, you know,

[00:04:42] which I think on the surface, to your point, there's like there's just so many companies out there that are trying to sell you a solution. And consumers are increasingly paying attention to their health and well-being and taking their health into their own hands, which is amazing.

[00:04:59] But what comes with that is a lot of players in the category that aren't necessarily doing the research and as thorough about selecting the ingredients, third-party testing, what's actually in their products. So more isn't always better when it comes to players in the supplement space. If you do it right, this is not an easy business to start.

[00:05:23] If you do the extensive research that needed has done, we spent three and a half years in R&D, aggregating research, the available research that's out there, talking to women's health practitioners, gathering a body of data from their own clinical practice to see what the deficiency rates look like in their patients and where they dose to get women to optimal nutritional levels in this life stage. If you do it the right way, it takes a lot of time.

[00:05:52] It takes a lot of work. Not everyone's doing it the right way. So I think the category has low barriers to entry. Just about anyone and their mother can start a supplement brand if you white-label products. And that's what we found when looking at the category is there are so many choices out there, but they almost all look the same. They're dosing at bare minimum levels.

[00:06:20] They're using buzzwords that sound appealing to a consumer. So as a consumer, it's really hard to know what to look for. We find even well-meaning OBGYNs or other practitioners that are less nutritionally trained will tell women, take any prenatal vitamin. They're all the same. Every one of them is the same. Just make sure that it has folate in it or you might look for something with choline.

[00:06:47] But I think the general understanding is you need one, but that they're all the same and that it's like an insurance policy for the baby. There's just not a lot of emphasis on this supplement is also for mom because you are depleted. And if you start out pregnancy depleted, your body is going to give as much nutrition as possible to the baby. On the other end of that journey of pregnancy or breastfeeding, if you choose to do so, you are going to be even more depleted.

[00:07:16] And that has impacts for women's health for the rest of their lives. So, you know, I think the passion for this space comes from a place of like really wanting to empower women with the education, the information about what your body needs to help kind of re-educate the category around this is not a nice to have. This is really a critical part of supporting your health and your baby's health.

[00:07:43] And it has generational health benefits for the mom, for the baby, for the, you know, future generations, because, you know, so much of a child's health for their lifetime starts in utero. And that includes like some things related to epigenetics that the baby can pass on for their kids. It's kind of wild when you start to think about how something that is as simple,

[00:08:07] seemingly simple as taking a prenatal vitamin when you're pregnant can actually change the health trajectory for the rest of your life. But the caveat there is that it really, really matters the quality of that product. Now, I just want to remind you, as you're listening to this, we have a code that you can use. And I encourage you right now, as Julie is talking about all the incredible things about Needed, bringing you radically better nutrition for women from conception to pregnancy to new motherhood and beyond.

[00:08:37] I want you to head over to thisisneeded.com and use code OPTIMAL. You're going to get 20% off your order and you're going to see that they have so much available, so much to support any stage of life that you're in, especially if you've had testing and you understand where you're needing a little bit more support. I really trust what Needed is doing. That's T-H-I-S-I-S-N-E-E-D-E-D.com and use code OPTIMAL and you get 20% off your order.

[00:09:06] Okay, let's head back in to listen to more. So yeah, I feel like so lucky to be spending my time, my time away from my kids, focused on a problem that matters so much, not only to my own kind of health and well-being as a mom and those of my friends and others who at this point, we've supported over 100,000 women along their journeys.

[00:09:32] But just knowing the impact that we're going to have throughout people's lives is pretty awesome. And I've noticed that you guys have really been mindful on continuing that path. Like maybe, yeah, you started as prenatal, but like how do we continue to support women? And then how do we bring in men to this picture and support how that journey is impacting a woman and the fertility health as well?

[00:09:55] And so like I do, that's one of the reasons I've loved what you guys do and what you create because you're really looking, okay, what's the problem? What can we help and bring to help create solutions to these issues? And I think that's so huge. When it comes to the difference, what you were kind of saying in the prenatals, what is it specifically that needed is bringing in to a prenatal that's typically missing?

[00:10:25] Besides, you know, I know you talked about the optimal dosing, but what should we really be looking for in a prenatal? Yeah, well, so I think there's a few really important factors. The reason I started with dosing is because you can do, so there's a big difference between a kind of over-the-counter drugstore brand, and I don't mean to vilify drugstore brands. I'm just going to use that as a kind of caveat or like I guess a terminology to refer to a standard prenatal vitamin.

[00:10:55] There is a world of difference in terms of the quality of the nutrients in a standard prenatal vitamin and a prenatal vitamin like needed that is selecting the nutrient forms that your body can best utilize. You might have heard of the term bioavailability. It's kind of a fancy term that just refers to how easily can your body use the nutrients that you're taking? How well absorbed will they be by the body and put to use?

[00:11:25] And you can get that right. Some companies have gotten that right, but they're still dosing at an amount that is basically like sprinkling, if you were to think about it in the context of what you need. If you need like a glass full, like if we just use the analogy of like a glass, they are putting in like a smattering, like a little tiny sprinkling, a dusting of the nutrient that your body requires.

[00:11:53] And that amount is enough to make a label claim. So it looks like it has in the case of something like B12. This is a good example. The RDA, which is the recommended amount set by the government. It's based on basically a paradigm that came out of World War II of how do you dose nutrients at a level to avoid a serious disease condition like vitamin C and scurvy is a good example.

[00:12:20] Scurvy is like an extreme example of where a vitamin C deficiency can lead to death. So there's a big difference between having scurvy and the amount that you need to prevent scurvy and what you need to support optimal immune health and tissue repair postpartum after giving birth. It's an order of magnitude different. In the case of vitamin B12, the RDA for pregnancy is set at 2.8 micrograms. It doesn't really matter what the amount is.

[00:12:48] The thing to know is that the optimal amount, which we found through nutrient testing, through our own clinical study, which we just published the preliminary results for, through practitioners testing women's nutrient levels day in and day out, is that the optimal amount of B12 is around 70 times the RDA. 7-0. That's a huge, huge amount.

[00:13:13] So if you think about that cup kind of analogy, if you're just getting a dusting of it, it's really not enough to get you to a place of optimal nutrition. And the reason that we emphasize optimal so much is because our bodies are really, as women, our bodies are really, really good at prioritizing the baby's needs. So even if you're getting like the bare minimum amount of nutrition, many times the baby will get enough to support the baby's health.

[00:13:43] Like it takes a lot of depletion for the baby's health to be compromised. But as a woman, your body is pulling from your own nutrient stores to support that baby. So if you are on the depleted end of the spectrum, you can pretty much be assured that your body, your own nutrient levels are going to be compromised. So we're always shooting for optimal, not bare minimum. And that's one of the things that I think really sets needed apart in this category is that

[00:14:12] we are using the best nutrient forms that your body can best utilize based on the latest clinical research and the in-practice experience of our practitioners. We have over 6,000 practitioners that are recommending needed contributing to our research, contributing to our education, and our understanding of what women need. And those nutrient forms are optimal, but also the dosage amounts are really optimal. And so I would highly recommend it does vary by nutrient.

[00:14:40] We have over 25 vitamins and minerals in our prenatal vitamin. I'm not going to go through right now and tell you the exact amount you should look for for every single nutrient. But the thing to know is that, you know, and I feel so much, honestly, I feel so much empathy for women who are trying to figure this out. It's really confusing. You're like, okay, so I need a prenatal vitamin that has the right form of B12 that has, you know, in the case of needed, we use two forms. One of them is the methylated form of B12.

[00:15:09] Like, oh, I've heard maybe I should take methylfolate or methyl B12. Great. I found a prenatal that checks those boxes and it also has choline in it. And now I also have to read the label and figure out the dosage amount. It's really confusing. It's also really confusing because if you look at a prenatal vitamin label for many nutrients, there is a percent daily value measured against the RDA level.

[00:15:35] So if you see that this has 100% of the daily value, you might be like, okay, I'm good. Like this prenatal vitamin has 100% of what I need or it has 40% of what I need. And in the case of other nutrients, I think this is like, this is where education really matters because the reality is that 100% daily value isn't optimal. That's 100% of the bare minimum level.

[00:15:59] So I try to lead with what to look for is the right nutrient amounts. And that is hard to figure out. We have a free educational resource on our website that two resources I want to share. One is what to look for in a prenatal vitamin, which goes through the specific nutrient amounts that matter for the kind of the top key nutrients.

[00:16:24] You know, like the top 10 or 12 is what we include in that research guide. And then we also have a resource that compares all the prenatal. I think it's like 75 prenatal vitamins in the category, which gives you just like a really high level, like pros, cons, how to kind of how to like augment it if it is the one that you're taking. So, okay, if you're taking this one and it doesn't have enough choline, make sure you're eating like two to three eggs a day, or you can take a choline add on.

[00:16:54] We want to make this simple. It's not simple. And I wish it was because it's easier to, you know, it's easier to explain. It's easier to sell something that simple. And I think that's why the one a day prenatals of the world, I'm not calling out that brand in particular, but just the idea of you can get everything you need in one or two pills or in a gummy vitamin. It's so appealing. It's such a simple message. It's just inconveniently true that it's not enough for your body.

[00:17:23] It's not enough to get you to optimal nutrition. So, you know, in a perfect world, we don't live in a perfect world. In a perfect world, women would have access to a health coach or a nutritionist to help them figure out, okay, based on what you're eating in a day, what, you know, what is the optimal amount of each of these nutrients and, you know, what do you need in a supplement? But we don't live in a perfect world. So, you know, I think the next best, the reason that we invest in clinical research,

[00:17:53] like our clinical study is to be able to show that, you know, across the clinical study showed, looked at 235 pregnant women in their, you know, kind of like second to third trimester time period and compared women on a standard prenatal to women taking needed. And it looked at what is their baseline nutrient status across a range of different nutrients between those two groups.

[00:18:20] And it looked at kind of like, are there statistically significant differences between groups, between women taking a standard prenatal and a woman taking needed? And what we found is what, frankly, what we expected to find is that women taking needed have significantly higher blood nutrient levels than women taking a standard prenatal vitamin. And in the case of many nutrients, women aren't at sufficient nutrient levels in the standard prenatal vitamin group.

[00:18:48] 90, I think it was like 94% of the women in the standard prenatal vitamin group are depleted in one or more key nutrients. So I don't want to go too much further down that rabbit hole other than to say, this is a little complicated. But we need it or trying to make this as accessible as possible in terms of the product suite that we offer. We have three different forms of our prenatal. In the future, we will have more.

[00:19:16] You know, we're constantly trying to figure out how do we make optimal nutrition as easy to take as possible, as easy to stay compliant with as possible. And, you know, for a lot of women, that isn't our eight capsule prenatal. Like even myself in my own pregnancies in the first trimester, I couldn't take our eight capsule. I wanted to. I knew it was important. It had the right amount of nutrients, but it's hard to take sometimes. So we have our prenatal multi-essentials.

[00:19:43] And in the future, we will have other form factors where we're able to offer a hugely significant amount of nutrients in an easy to take format. And then we're also trying to make the education easy, easy to understand because unless you really understand, you know, I think for most women, once you understand the difference, it's like, oh my gosh, well, I don't, I don't really care if the gummy is easier. Like I'm going to do the thing that's better for me and my baby.

[00:20:12] But it, it takes that education, I think, for women to really, to really understand. And honestly, as a, as a fellow mother, what I care about most is that people understand how to, how can you kind of like, if you're taking a standard prenatal vitamin, how can you eat in a way to try to get your nutrient levels up to what you need or maybe add on something on top of your prenatal? I'm really less invested in converting you to needed.

[00:20:39] I'd love for you to, you know, become a customer, but I care so much that women just understand and have the information. Um, and I also recognize we at Needed recognize that like not every woman can afford to take a needed prenatal, um, but you can still come and get access to our free education. Um, and that is something that as a company we care a lot about just, you know, contributing to the, I guess, changing the standard of care in this category is what we're really about.

[00:21:07] We want, we want all practitioners that hopefully there's a world in 10 years from now where every prenatal vitamin is dosing at the optimal amount of every nutrient and there is no difference, um, between prenatals that would be success. Um, you know, because then every woman in this country would be nourished instead of depleted. Which you guys led the, the charge in that, which would be amazing. And like you said, I just want to touch on that for a little bit because people would,

[00:21:34] when I was like taking my prenatals and showing how I'm taking my prenatals, it's like, but eight pills a day and how do you do that? And, you know, for me, it's, it's relatively easy. I don't mind taking pills and I can just pop them and get them done. And, and I prefer that over mixing it into a drink or a smoothie or water or anything like that. So, but I appreciate that you guys have the other forms of being able to do it. Yep. Why the eight pills? So eight, yeah, eight, eight's a lot. Eight sounds like a lot at least.

[00:22:03] Um, you know, and especially if you're comparing it to a one a day or two a day prenatal. The reason for eight is that it is physically impossible to fit in optimal nutrient forms. So some of the optimal forms, especially the optimal forms of the, the minerals, the bulky, bulky kind of minerals, um, or mineral like, um, nutrients like choline, um, it's technically a vitamin, but it kind of like molecularly looks more like a mineral.

[00:22:32] It's very difficult to fit an optimal form and an optimal amount into less than eight capsules a day. So our prenatal essentials is three capsules a day. It is the same optimal forms of nutrients, but a pared down dose of most, most nutrients. We don't pare down folate, um, because methylfolate, folate is so critical to baby's neural tube development in that first trimester.

[00:23:01] We want to make sure if you're taking the three caps so that you're getting the optimal amount of folate in that we don't compromise on that. And folate is a less bulky nutrient, so we can do that. But in the case of something like a choline or magnesium or calcium, it's very difficult to fit. It's, it's just frankly impossible to fit in the right form and the right dose into less than eight capsules a day. So there are prenatals on the, on the market.

[00:23:28] We've talked about some of them that, um, are one or two pills a day. And the way that they're doing that is by using a less bioavailable form of the nutrient and oftentimes a lower dosage amount. Um, sometimes they omit the nutrient altogether. So a lot of prenatals, um, don't have magnesium. They don't have calcium. Some of them don't even have choline, which is a little bit shocking because there's

[00:23:56] been a choline RDA. You know, we talked about RDAs. They're the bare minimum. Choline RDA has existed since the nineties and they're still 25 years later. There's still prenatals that don't have choline in it. It's pretty, it's pretty astounding. But the reason is, um, well, there's a few reasons. One is that on average, it takes around 17 years for, um, for recommended recommendations,

[00:24:22] kind of like the governing bodies to update their recommendations to reflect the clinical research. So that's one reason there's a lag. Um, but then in the case of choline, that, that recommendation has been out there for 25 years. The other reason is because it's just so bulky. It's hard to formulate with. So it's easier for these companies to leave it out than to try to formulate it in. Um, but I wish they would tell you like, this doesn't have choline.

[00:24:50] So you knew to take it out on, they don't, you know, they make it sound like it's a complete prenatal and it's not because it doesn't have choline in it. It doesn't have a lot of nutrients in it oftentimes. Um, so that's the reason for eight and the powder that we offer, it's a vanilla powder. It mixes well into smoothies. I personally love it on days I'm making a smoothie, but I don't make smoothies every day. And we hear that a lot from our customers. It's like, it's an awesome option for those.

[00:25:17] If you're having a smoothie, a lot of women like to make smoothies in pregnancy, but maybe postpartum you're doing warm foods or you're just frankly too busy. You've got multiple kids like we do. Um, you don't have time to make a smoothie every day. So that's why we offer it's nutritionally. And what I meant to say about the powder is it's nutritionally identical to the capsules, same exact nutrient forms, dosages. Um, but two different form factors to let you kind of, um, figure out what works best for your routine.

[00:25:46] And we find a lot of our customers do, um, switch off between them. In my, in my case, I actually use all three of our forms. I use the essentials in the first trimester. Or if I like, I'm running out the door quickly or I haven't eaten in the morning and I need to take something that, um, I can take without food. I'll take the essentials. Um, or I'll take the capsules on days where I'm like, if I have eggs for breakfast or, you know, I don't make a smoothie, I'll do the capsules or I'll do the powder on smoothie days.

[00:26:15] So a range of options I think is what, um, you know, what is going to be required to ensure that every woman can have access to the right amount of nutrients. So, I mean, you've brought up so much and these are probably my favorite interviews when I feel like we could just tell you like, okay, just talk and educate us because I've learned so much already. And I'm still just kind of like reeling over 70 times the RDA for B12. Like that has stuck with me.

[00:26:44] And then when Jen asked though, well, why eight pills? Because you need to put 70 times the RDA in there. Just want to hammer that in for people. Like you're trying to get the level of nutrient based on what actually helps women get the blood serum levels of the nutrient that they need, uh, in their body. And that you brought up another amazing point about RDAs versus what a pregnant woman might

[00:27:10] actually need to then reflect in her blood testing, the optimal level of nutrition. Those are two very different numbers. And I don't think people understand that. And you don't often see a vitamin that has 7,000% the amount of B12 that we sometimes get questions about that. And I think it is good to note that more isn't always better. Like we're talking a lot in this conversation about like more nutrients. Yes. More is often better.

[00:27:39] It's not always better. There are, there are maximum amounts that we would recommend you take in a day, at least in a supplement form, in a form where your body's going to absorb it really well. Um, so we're not, we're not a like more is always better. We're really thoughtful about our dosages and we're really thoughtful about how nutrients interact with one another. Um, and what we're always trying to figure out is that Goldilocks amount and we're taking into account what are women consuming in their diet?

[00:28:07] Because we don't, we don't want your levels to be too high. There can sometimes be, um, you know, negative impacts of your nutrient levels being too high. But I think the really, really, really important thing to make sure women understand is that if you see on a needed prenatal, if you see a percentage that looks crazy, like thousands of percents of the daily value, know that that's a safe amount, that it is, it is safe.

[00:28:36] It's clinically shown to be safe. It's been used in in-practice experience with our clinicians. We now have a clinical, um, study demonstrating that, you know, the nutrient amounts of women on, on the needed prenatal, um, that, that that's what it takes to get you into a sufficiency range. But it can sometimes be scary. I think a lot of women, when you're pregnant, you don't want to do anything that's going to jeopardize the health of your baby. And seeing a percentage like that can be kind of like, oh my gosh, do I really need that?

[00:29:06] Like, is that, is that, um, is that something that I should really be doing? And, and so I just want to reassure women that like, despite seeing a crazy percentage like that, there's a really strong reason why we're dosing at those levels. And unfortunately we like, there are still some women who may have a deficiency, even with that level of B12. That's, that's the amount that we feel comfortable putting in a prenatal based on, you know,

[00:29:36] the, all of the available research, our clinicians experience, the clinical study, but there are some women who like, if you were a vegan, for example, if you're not consuming any red meat, um, you may need more, you may benefit from even more. Um, so we're always thinking about safety. More is not always better. We're always thinking about safety when it comes to dosing. Which that's back to your point of how every woman should just have a nutritionist or someone

[00:30:03] who's doing this testing so we can have more personalized recommendations. Yeah. But that doesn't seem to be something we value in our healthcare system, which is a whole another topic. We really wish like the ideal would be nutrient testing preconception, um, during the first trimester, the second trimester, the third trimester and postpartum and probably like more than one follow-up postpartum. That's pretty uncommon. You know, you may have a practitioner that will run labs either preconception or in the first trimester.

[00:30:33] Usually they're like looking at iron, which is an important nutrient and, you know, research shows like 70, it's either 70 or 77. Some, some high percentage of women need supplemental iron during pregnancy, but not every woman needs iron, um, at all stages. And iron is actually a really, a good example of, um, that more isn't always better idea. We don't actually include iron in our prenatal, um, for a few reasons.

[00:30:59] Um, the one, one of the number one reasons is because iron competes with other minerals for absorption and it can out-compete some of the other minerals that are really important in pregnancy. So some, some prenatals that include iron leave out calcium, for example, uh, entirely. And it's very uncommon for a woman to take supplemental calcium on top of their prenatal. Um, so we include iron as an add-on that's separate from the prenatal.

[00:31:29] The, uh, the other kind of, so you can take the iron at a different time of day than your prenatal and that's how you avoid that out-competion, uh, I guess out-competing, um, made up a new word there. Uh, the other reason is that, um, nutrient needs really vary for women. Like my co-founder is an example of someone who never has needed supplemental iron. I tend to be more on the, you know, the low to normal, like low normal probably could benefit

[00:31:57] from iron in my pregnancies. So I do supplement with iron, but it's really, it's ideal to have, uh, ferritin testing to know exactly what you need. Not every woman will have ferritin levels checked, but. Um, iron is one of those nutrients that gets tested more often than others like B12, choline, you know, usually vitamin D. It's pretty rare that those are being tested, even though they should be in their standard

[00:32:23] panels that you can order from, from, or your practitioner can order from lab for request. Um, they're just not very commonly, commonly, um, ordered. Um, but in the case of iron, that's, that's, uh, just to close that thread. More iron isn't necessarily better. If you have too much iron, it can impact the microbiome, your gut health, um, what you absorb from food. So we, we're thoughtful about, we don't want to give you an excess amount of iron.

[00:32:51] Um, but we're also upfront about that. We want to make sure women understand, Hey, this prenatal doesn't have iron. If you need it, you should take it. That's not to sell you more products. That's because we care a lot about, um, not women, not overdoing it. And we want to make sure that you have enough of those minerals. Um, cause you know, if you're not getting enough calcium, magnesium, your body's going to pull that literally pulls it from your bones, pulls it from your teeth.

[00:33:19] Um, it's crazy, but I'm sure some who are listening, some women who have been pregnant know that like your teeth enamel can look thinner after pregnancy. That's a mineral deficiency. It's common. It's not, it's not something that can't be corrected for after. Um, but you know, but that can happen if you're not getting the right amount of those nutrients. Yeah. And I know that you guys pull in partners into this as well, especially in the conception, right?

[00:33:46] And so what does that look like for partners? Why is that important for partners to also be paying attention to how they're supplementing or what they're putting in their body? And what are the nutrients that you're kind of looking for with, um, a male partner to, to add in? Which shout out to that. Like I had never even heard of a man taking a prenatal or preconception supplement or sperm support.

[00:34:14] I started taking sperm support, you know, prior to get conceiving, which it only makes sense, but I feel like this conversation is always so directed at the fertility of the woman and how can the woman optimize, you know, how fertile or how ready their body is to conceive. And the man kind of gets left out, even though to conceive they are half the equation. So yeah, I, I was pleasantly surprised and very open to like going on that journey as well. Cause I'm like, I need to do my part.

[00:34:43] Yeah, totally. And I think, I mean, I think the conversation is shifting. I think there are so many more like, you know, in our generation, like men are so much more involved in all aspects of parenting than, you know, in prior generations. And, you know, we do see such a willingness for male partners to, as you said, to do their part, to kind of look at their own nutrition, especially because the time period for men,

[00:35:10] you know, for women, it's like, it's amazing to start your prenatal preconception. You want your nutrient levels to be optimized. There is nutritional support that can help with, help support egg quality and some of the other parameters around female fertility. But for women, that journey is longer. You know, you want to keep taking your prenatal throughout pregnancy while you're breastfeeding, or if you aren't breastfeeding at least six months postpartum, that's a long time.

[00:35:38] So women, I would say the investment for women is higher. For men, it is a relatively short time period where we know from the clinical research that nutrition can positively impact sperm parameters. The shape of sperm, there's like a few of them shaped, you know, the movement of them, the count, the volume of them. We want all of those parameters to be optimal, to optimize the chance of conception because

[00:36:06] the male DNA that's in sperm meets the female DNA in an egg. And that DNA meeting is what determines, you know, the chances of conception, but also the health of that embryo. And the ability for that kind of to end in that pregnancy to end in a full term healthy baby. So male fertility really matters. At Needed, we really look at it.

[00:36:33] We're first and foremost a women's health company, but we very much look at male fertility as a women's health issue. If we're overlooking men's role, we're placing so much burden on women. And a lot of, I think, frankly, a lot of, I experienced in between my first and second kids, I experienced a pregnancy loss. And so I know firsthand that feeling of like, what's wrong with my body?

[00:37:03] And, you know, how, what did I do wrong? That I think is just so pervasive in this stage of life that, you know, it's a woman's body that has to be impacted by fertility treatments or by a miscarriage. And it's so, it's so unfortunate. Like we can't change that reality that like, if you're going through a fertility journey,

[00:37:28] that's got some assistance involved in it, like IVF or IUI, that it's going to disproportionately impact the female body more than the male body. Same with a pregnancy loss, it's going to disproportionately be felt in her body. But there, there is a way to share that kind of responsibility through nutrition, through, you know, we very much advocate again, in a perfect world, this is a perfect world.

[00:37:55] We don't live in a perfect world, but in a perfect world, men would test their sperm quality, health, et cetera, those parameters. There's preconception, the research shows that, that the, you know, 90 day window preconception, that's the maturation phase for sperm, that nutrition and other lifestyle modifications, like, you know, keep your cell phone away from your pockets, you know, avoid high heat,

[00:38:22] like a sauna or a hot tub, which can kill sperm quantities and kind of change the shape of sperm, smoking, alcohol consumption, et cetera. But nutrition as a big component of it, that you can actually significantly impact sperm health, sperm quality in that time period. And if you think about it, it's 90, it's 90 days, plus then whatever time period it takes to conceive, you know, it doesn't happen on the first go for many.

[00:38:49] So maybe, you know, up to a year of investing in your nutrition levels as a man, that, if you think about like a zoom out of like a year to invest in the health of your child for the rest of their life and to make the journey as smooth, there's no guarantees in life, of course. Like some things are out of our control, but nutrition is one of those really big things that we can control.

[00:39:16] I think when, you know, oftentimes, and I'll be upfront about this, oftentimes it's women discovering the male fertility line that needed offers and talking to their partner and getting their male partner on board with it. I wish more men were doing the research, the primary research themselves and finding this out. But what we find is that when men learn about this and understand that like, okay, this is

[00:39:41] something you can do, you can take a four capsule multi and take, you know, we have a sperm support add-on. It's awesome if men also take CoQ10. That sperm support add-on has a lot of antioxidants that are protective of the health of sperm. The CoQ10 is another really important antioxidant and omega-3 is the other nutrient that we would recommend men look at. But if you can only take one thing, you could take our sperm support or you could take the men's multi.

[00:40:11] It's a very, it's a simple thing that you can do to really support your health. And what we find is like, I really do think this generation of men errors, like they're in it with women in this journey of building a family and it really is a direct investment. Like I'm not saying this because it, you know, will help us sell more men's fertility support plans. I, I, we care a lot.

[00:40:38] Like we care a lot about the health of the next generation. And, you know, we are just, we haven't talked about this yet, but I think it's so important to understand like a men's prenatal, if you want to call it that, that's not what we call ours, but like a men's prenatal is a relatively new invention. It was not something that our parents took or that our grandparents took and, and we're all here. And like many of us are in relatively good health, not, not perfect health, but why, why should

[00:41:08] men take a prenatal or for that matter, why should women take a prenatal if our grandparents didn't? And the, the truth is that we aren't living in the same world that our grandparents lived in, we're not eating nose to tail. We're not eating, you know, um, soil to table. Like many of us aren't growing our own food and the soil that our food is grown in is depleted.

[00:41:33] Um, because of farming practices in the U S there's like a monoculture problem where the same, you know, like if you think about soil in the Midwest, like it's one crop, it's one crop. It's not like a rotation of crops that's repleting the soil. So if our soil is depleted, our food's depleted, we're going to be depleted. It's just not possible to eat enough of, you know, the foods that are rich in those nutrients to get enough of what we need from food alone.

[00:42:01] Um, and then if you add onto that, we're exposed to so many more toxins in the environment than prior generations were. Um, and that excess toxic load means your body has to work extra hard to get rid of them, which raises your baseline nutrient needs. So that's why I think that's why the research is so important because we need to, we need to be updating the research every 10 years or so to know what do modern women, what do

[00:42:29] modern men need, uh, to kind of combat the circumstances that we find ourselves in. Um, hopefully there's a, there's a future world where our kids don't need supplements to be healthy. And I think it's normal to be skeptical about like, why should I take this, you know, like, I don't know, miracle pill. Like we don't, we certainly don't market in it as a pill, but I think there's a lot of snake

[00:42:55] oil in the space and there's a lot of reason to be skeptical about, um, why should I take this thing? Like we never make a promise that this product is going to, you know, help you get pregnant. Like that's irresponsible to talk about it in that way. But, um, I think it is eyeopening to understand the why behind, um, what our bodies are kind of exposed to right now and how that has an impact on fertility.

[00:43:22] Well, and you know, it was interesting too, when I, in my first pregnancy, particularly talking to a midwife and, and some friends, they just recommended beef liver, just take beef liver supplement instead of taking a prenatal. What is your, like, what do you say about that? We get that question at needed. Um, and beef liver is a good example of like one of those ancestral foods that, you know, is really rich in nutrients.

[00:43:48] The problem with taking beef liver in place of a prenatal or taking excessive amounts of beef liver is that it's really high in certain nutrients, like maybe too high for everyday use or certainly in like a supplemental form where it's like a concentrated amount of that food. It's really high in certain nutrients and it doesn't have others. So we don't recommend beef liver in place of a prenatal.

[00:44:13] There are many needed customers and practitioners, my co-founder being one of them who will consume liver, chicken liver, beef liver as part of a healthy diet in pregnancy. That can be safe. That can be a great choice. Um, but we don't recommend it as a substitute for a prenatal. There, there is a misnomer that it's like nature's prenatal vitamin or multivitamin, maybe in different stages of life, you know, take beef liver and, you know, and rely on those,

[00:44:43] um, kind of whole foods. I get, I get the, the interest in it as a replacement for supplements. I just wouldn't, I would caution strongly against it for the life stage of fertility, pregnancy and postpartum. You've brought up multiple times how you guys are focused on so much research and just wondering where the focus is now. What are the, where are places that you're wanting to move the needle in perinatal research

[00:45:08] to kind of add to this, you know, wealth of knowledge that you've already started to build? Yeah. Well, we really think about, you know, research and advocacy going hand in hand. So it's awesome that this research exists. We wrote a white paper, um, a year and a half ago that synthesized all of the available clinical research to establish like all of the research that supports the fact that nutrition is critical, but it's underlooked and it's, and women aren't getting the nutrition they need.

[00:45:45] It's also how do you put that research in front of the powers that be in a way that they're going to listen. So need is really focused on doing the, the clinical validation, like our clinical study, and then getting it in front of doctors, getting it in front of, you know, 90 plus percent of women in this country see an OBGYN as their primary care provider in pregnancy. Some of us work with midwives and midwives tend to have a little bit more focus on nutrition

[00:46:14] as part of their curriculum, but there's not a lot of nutritional awareness, I would say among, um, that primary care provider for most women. So we want to, we want to be part of that education, you know, when, and, and, and I would say that like OBGYNs and, um, you know, the governing bodies, whether it's ACOG who oversees OBGYNs or the FDA or the CDC, they tend to be very influenced by data.

[00:46:43] And so it's, it's really about having the right data in front of the right audience to change minds. It's not going to happen overnight though. And I mean, it could take 10 plus years for us to, to change the standards so that the RDAs reflect what women actually need. And that's too long for like a whole generation of women and babies. So what we're really focused on at needed is educating women to be their, their own health

[00:47:11] advocates and partnering with women's health practitioners that already get this, that we can just arm them with even more data, even more information so they can educate their online. You know, a lot of women's health practitioners, um, have come online and they view themselves really as educators, um, first and foremost. Um, and they are doing important work to make sure that women understand what they need.

[00:47:37] And we built a program, we call it needed Academy to basically train women's health advocates, practitioners. If you're a consumer, like a mom, and you just want to learn more about this, you can go through needed Academy. It's, I think it's nine modules in total understanding the physiology of pregnant, of fertility, pregnancy and postpartum and how nutritional needs change over that time period. Um, and really how to responsibly share this information.

[00:48:06] That's, um, something that we're really passionate about. You probably tell I've mentioned education a number of times, but to us, it's as important as the products. Like it may be more important that people understand the why. Um, so I would say that's, that's a big focus for needed. And then on the product side, we're also really interested in continuing to support women after

[00:48:29] their pregnancy ends, you know, after they're done breastfeeding their last baby, your nutrient needs don't just revert to like, you don't need anything. So, you know, we, we want to be able to follow a woman through the next stage of her health journey through perimenopause, through, um, menopause, through kind of like the rest of her life with, um, the nutrition that she needs. And what we're finding is that many women, you know, I'm 37.

[00:48:58] I just had my third baby. Um, many women are having their babies in their thirties, even their forties. And so that timeline between done breastfeeding and perimenopause is not very long, but if you go into that stage of life depleted, you're much more likely to have a hard time with that transition than if you are optimally replenished.

[00:49:22] So I think that that is going to take a lot of education, similar to the perinatal stage, um, and partnering with women's health practitioners and advocates to really educate. And to, you know, women are, we're just so much, we're so much better about prioritizing the needs. And this is a generality, but I think it applies in most cases that women are really good at prioritizing the needs of their like developing baby or their toddler.

[00:49:49] Like you're not, you're not going to neglect the needs, the nutritional needs of your baby, but it's sometimes hard for us to take care of ourselves, to put ourselves first. And so I think it's going to take a lot of education. It's going to take kind of changing the narrative that your health as a mother, when you're no longer pregnant, it still matters. Um, so we will approach that life stage with the same way that we approached perinatal with

[00:50:18] like a lot of education research backing up, um, what women's nutrient status looks like, um, and delivering nutritional solutions that are easy to take. And, you know, one of the products that is our first foray into that is our cognitive support product. We also have a women's health line, which is a vitamin, you know, vitamin, um, multivitamin, um, omega-3 collagen, all of which are really important.

[00:50:47] Protein's very important for women as we age. Um, and collagen in particular, um, can be really helpful for that connected. And joint health. But on top of that, we ought, we now offer a cognitive support product that is breastfeeding safe. It was really designed around the stage, um, postpartum when many women are experiencing brain fog. Um, and because we don't have paid leave in this country, many women are going back to

[00:51:14] work sooner than is physiologically optimal. Right. Um, and you know, we wanted to design a product that supports, it was actually the kind of insight that this was built around as my co-founders return to work postpartum with her first baby and the struggle she had with, um, brain fog and with eye strain and wanting to find something that was breastfeeding safe.

[00:51:41] And that also, you know, there's a pronounced, um, hormonal kind of impact to, uh, higher level kind of like executive functioning brain, brain function that comes with breastfeeding. We wanted to figure out a way to support the body so that you could continue to breastfeed, but also feel like yourself, feel like you again. Um, and what we found through launching that product is it's done so well postpartum, but it's also doing really well with women who are at a slightly later stage in their life

[00:52:11] because that hormonal impact to the brain is mirrored. What you experienced postpartum is mirrored in perimenopause and menopause as well. So that's been really exciting to see. And then on the other end of the spectrum, um, products for, um, your children, you know, following a woman through, if we, if we are the brand that is focused on, um, you know,

[00:52:39] kind of the anti-depletion brand for women that, that could extend into your child's, um, health and wellbeing. You know, the kids supplement market is probably a little bit more crowded than the women's health space, but there's still gaps in the practitioner and practitioner grade end of the spectrum. And it's been, it's been fun to have a product like our immune support that is designed to be pregnancy, breastfeeding safe, fertility safe. But like my kids are obsessed with it.

[00:53:05] And we all know if we have toddlers in the house that you're only as healthy as the, you know, most susceptible member of the family and those kids who go to school, kids get sick on average. I think it's like six to 12 times a year. Um, and that increases if you have two kids. Um, so we all feel it. I mean, I have a, I have a head cold today cause of my school age kids. Um, but you know, you, you guys are probably living this with a, with a two year old and a, in a little one, a four month old.

[00:53:35] Um, but you know, that, that toddler picks up something, brings it home, the baby's exposed. So we really view it as an extension of supporting perinatal health to, um, have a product that is super safe for everyone in the family to take. And that actually works. And that like, frankly tastes, I don't know if you guys have tried it, but it, it tastes really good. My dad who's like 83 is obsessed with it. He's a bit immunocompromised and he, he loves to take it. And my two year old loves to take it and ask for it by name.

[00:54:05] So, um, those are our kind of first forays into products that are a little outside of their, their design for perinatal, but they really work well in those, um, other kind of category extensions. So yeah, I think you'll see more of that from needed in the future. I love it. And where can people go to learn all of this free information or find out what stage they're in and what supplements would support them in where they are right now? Yes.

[00:54:31] So our website, we're primarily sold direct to consumer via our website, which is thisisneeded.com. We're also on Amazon. All of the free education lives on our website or on our Instagram, which is just at needed, one word. And then I mentioned needed Academy. Needed Academy is also on Instagram. It's an Instagram based program. So you can find that at needed Academy, two words, but merged as one word. Perfect. I love that.

[00:54:58] And something I didn't get to bring up when you were talking about the free education and you've talked about education so much, and I really want to commend you and commend needed for having that as that. That's the product. Yeah. You guys give out prenatals. Yes. Like that's also involved, but like your passion sings through in how much you talk about education and the resources that you provide.

[00:55:24] And to have a company that has a guide on there with 75 popular prenatals outlining what you might be missing if you're taking something else, that alone shows that you don't care if people are using your product. You care that people are getting the education and that I really appreciate that about you and about needed, that that is your mission. And yes, you give out amazing prenatals as well. So thank you so much for coming and sharing all of this.

[00:55:50] You know, we have a team of like really passionate employees, including our customer service team, which is just amazing and includes perinatal. We have a doula on the team. We have a prenatal nutritionist on the team. We also offer our subscribers access to a free prenatal nutritionist if you have questions about your routine.

[00:56:12] But one of the things that we really emphasize with the team is like the product sales support the education and of course, vice versa. But like we're so passionate about reinvesting in education and clinical research. And to your point, it's like we're education. That's like that really is the kind of crux of what needed exists for. And it just so happens that we sell products.

[00:56:42] You know, you need both like the products didn't exist. And that was a big problem that, you know, accessibility to those products is really critical. But at the end of the day, we're what we get up in the morning for is not to sell more prenatals. It's really to help more women and education is a huge part of that. That's amazing. And I mean, I love that our missions are so parallel, different aspects in what we're educating on.

[00:57:10] But, you know, the mission really lies in educating and helping. So I appreciate everything that you guys do. And thank you for taking the time and educating us on this podcast. I will continue to take my prenatals as I am depleted from breastfeeding and just mentally the cognitive function that I need as well. So again, thank you for all that you do and all that you are providing. Thank you so much. And thank you guys for the important work that you do. You know, we can't do it alone. And we, you know, we really do.

[00:57:41] We're, you know, excited to be building this like really a collective of those who are advocating alongside us. Thank you for sticking around for another episode. I hope that you enjoyed this. Julie is a wealth of knowledge. And there were so many more questions. I know we could have dove in with her. And that's why you should go to thisisneeded.com. Check out their blog. There's so much information, again, that they provide for free. That's T-H-I-S-I-S-N-E-E-D-E-D.com.

[00:58:10] And you can actually use code optimal and you get a 20% discount on your first order. So whether you're looking at their prenatals, their collagen, or their male supplements, I highly recommend Needed for so many reasons. And I know that you've learned a lot right now. Pass this episode on to anyone, you know, looking for supplements, looking for prenatals, or confused about the entire process. It's going to help them so much. And we appreciate you being here. See you next time on the Optimal Body Podcast.