Motherhood, Minerals, Functional Health

Wild Roots — Post No. 2

Narrated on the move. Minimally edited. Completely real.

The Minerals Every Mama Needs and Probably Isn't Getting

The Minerals Every Mama Needs and Probably Isn't Getting
A nurse's honest breakdown of the top mineral deficiencies in women and what to do about them.

Let me start by saying this — feeling like crap is not normal. Feeling exhausted, depleted, foggy, emotional, and like you are running on fumes is not just "part of motherhood." It is your body telling you something is missing. And in my experience, across years of working in hospitals, training women as a personal trainer, and diving deep into the functional health space — what is almost always missing is minerals.
Let me explain.

The disconnect nobody is talking about.

After years of working in various specialties across the hospital, and then shifting into personal training and functional health, the common theme I keep seeing is a massive disconnect when it comes to nutrition. Western medicine is not well educated in nutrition — full stop. And for prenatal, pregnant, and postpartum moms specifically, the lack of support is even more glaring.

That is actually a big part of why I decided to pursue my prenatal and postnatal coaching certification — because I could finally tie everything together. My nursing background, my training knowledge, my functional health research — all of it pointed to the same thing. Moms are not being supported the way they need to be, especially when it comes to what they are actually putting in their bodies.

And as a first time mom myself, I felt this personally. I understood in a whole new way how critical it is to take care of yourself in order to show up for your child without completely crumbling. Some depletion during the postpartum season is real and normal — breastfeeding is extremely draining, sleep deprivation is real, and your body just built and delivered an entire human. But feeling genuinely miserable? That is not something you just have to accept. That is a signal.

💡 Pro Tip for data-minded moms: If you love metrics the way a senior software engineer loves logs, start journaling symptoms alongside what you eat and drink. Over a few weeks, patterns around energy dips, headaches, or sleep can be as revealing as a well-instrumented production system.

So why minerals specifically?

Here is something most people do not know — minerals used to be in our water and in our soil naturally. They were just there. But because of modern farming practices, environmental toxins, and contaminated water supplies, those minerals are largely gone from our food and water sources.

And here is the kicker — I absolutely recommend filtering your water. There is too much shit in there now not to. But the problem with filtering is that it takes everything out. The bad stuff and the good stuff. So whatever was naturally occurring and beneficial in the water is gone too. That means you have to add minerals back in intentionally.

This is the number one thing I see in pregnant and postpartum women who are feeling drained and depleted. Low minerals. Across the board.

Engineer’s analogy: Think of minerals as the low-level dependencies your whole “system” is built on. You can have beautiful high-level “features” — workouts, affirmations, planners — but if the core libraries (magnesium, potassium, sodium, trace minerals) are missing, the app crashes under load.

What I actually recommend.

Depending on your budget, there are a few ways to address this.
The simplest and most affordable starting point is adding trace mineral drops to your water. They have minimal taste, they are easy to use, and they make a real difference. Just add them to your filtered water daily.

Now I want to talk about electrolytes for a second because I get asked about this a lot and I have thoughts. A lot of the popular electrolyte mixes on the market are not well balanced. They are high in sodium and missing key players like potassium, taurine, and other compounds that actually support vascular health and deep cellular hydration. And there is a difference — a big one.

Let me paint a picture. Think of your vascular system as a highway. It is your body's transport system — the way nutrients travel from your mouth to your organs. Salt pulls fluid into that highway, into the bloodstream. But that is not the end destination. Your cells are the end destination. Your cells make up your organs. So if you want to actually measure and support your health at the deepest level, you need to be thinking about intracellular nutrition — what is getting into the cells themselves, not just circulating in the blood.

This is also why standard bloodwork is not the most accurate picture of your nutritional status. It is measuring what is in your bloodstream — not what is in your tissues. The only things that give you a real tissue-level measurement are a biopsy or the device I work with, the PRYSM iO scanner. I will link more information on that here because it deserves its own entire post — and I have a lot to say about it — but I did not want to go too deep into it and lose the thread of what we are talking about.
Back to minerals.

Simple daily habits, like mineralizing filtered water, compound into real energy shifts.

The mineral lineup worth knowing.

• Magnesium — probably the most widespread deficiency I see. It is involved in over 300 enzymatic reactions in the body. Sleep, muscle recovery, stress response, hormone regulation — magnesium is in all of it. Most people are low.

• Potassium — critical for heart health, muscle function, and fluid balance. Chronically underconsumed because most people are not eating enough whole foods rich in it.

• Sodium — yes, you need it, but the right kind and in the right balance with the other electrolytes. Not just table salt dumped into a packet.

• Taurine — massively underrated. Supports cardiovascular health, bile production, nervous system function, and cellular hydration at a deeper level than sodium alone.

• Trace minerals — things like zinc, selenium, chromium, manganese — these come from the soil, which means they come from the food grown in that soil. And as I said, modern farming has depleted most of this. You are not getting what your grandmother got from the same foods.

Studies suggest that the majority of Americans are chronically dehydrated — and a big part of that is not just about drinking more water, it is about what is in that water and whether your cells can actually absorb and use it.

For the spreadsheet lovers: You can track your mineral-focused habits like you would track feature flags. Create columns for magnesium, potassium, sodium balance, taurine, and trace minerals, then mark daily compliance. Over time you will see correlations between consistency and how you actually feel.

And then there are antioxidants.

Beyond minerals, I want to talk about antioxidants because this is where food can genuinely move the needle — if you are eating the right foods consistently.
The simple rule: more color in your diet equals more protection for your cells. Every different color in a fruit or vegetable represents a different class of phytonutrients and antioxidants. The research here is not subtle — there are hundreds of studies linking antioxidant-rich diets to reduced risk of every major chronic illness, slower cellular aging, better skin, better organ function, better digestion, better stress resilience. Everything.

Think about what aging actually is at the cellular level — it is damage. Oxidative stress damaging your cells over time. On the outside that looks like wrinkles and skin changes. Beneath the surface it looks like inflammation, organ dysfunction, chronic illness, fatigue. Antioxidants are literally your protection against that process.

The honest truth about supplementation.

I want to end with this because I know some people push back on supplements and I understand why. In an ideal world, everything we need would come from whole, clean, nutrient-dense food. And whole food should absolutely be the foundation — always.

But here is the reality. The food supply is not what it was. The soil is depleted. The water is filtered. The stress load on modern women — especially mothers — is higher than it has ever been. You can eat a genuinely clean, holistic diet and still have gaps. I see it constantly.

Supplementation is not a replacement for good food. It is gap coverage. And for pregnant and postpartum women especially, those gaps can have real consequences — for you and for your baby.

At the end of this post I am linking my free guide, Minerals for Mommies — a full breakdown of the micronutrients every woman needs, organized by life phase, with specifics on what to look for and why. Download it, read it, share it with someone who needs it.
You deserve to feel good. Not just functional. Actually good.
— Madeleine

RN · Personal Trainer · @the_holistic_momma

• 📎 Download: Minerals for Mommies — Guide

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