Why You Need To Prioritize Minerals As a Mom (And Test Instead of Guess)

It’s estimated that each pregnancy gives around 10% of a mom’s mineral stores to her baby, and breastfeeding can continue to pull minerals from a mom’s body.

(Research even shows that bone mass decreases while lactating, partly due to the impact on minerals.)

And especially if your diet isn’t nutritionally sufficient, you’re under-eating, you aren’t getting enough sleep (and therefore, can’t fully restore), or you’re under a lot of stress (who isn’t as a parent!?), it’s far too easy to become depleted in minerals as a mom.

In fact, in addition to the normal processes of pregnancy and postpartum, dieting (or unknowingly eating too little), blood sugar imbalances (aka skipping meals, living off caffeine and toddler leftovers, and waiting until everyone else is fed to ever eat, if you remember at all), high stress levels and chronic nervous system dysregulation, and digestive dysfunction (= lower nutrient absorption) are some of the most common drivers of mineral deficiencies.

Why the big focus on minerals, especially for moms?

Besides all of those reasons mentioned before, minerals are also just super important. They’re critical for the body to grow, develop, and repair, and are necessary for good health and resilience. More specifically, minerals act like spark plugs in the body by activating enzymes that carry out chemical reactions for the metabolism.

Common signs you need mineral support:

• Exhaustion that doesn’t improve with sleep

• Anxiety or other mental health struggles (while causes are multifaceted, micronutrient deficiencies are a huge risk factor)

• Irritability, rage, and a tendency to get overstimulated and overwhelmed

• Decreased ability to handle stress (i.e. small things send you easily spiraling)

• Muscle tightness, twitching, or cramping

• Dizziness, especially with postural changes (like when you stand up “too quickly”)

• Increase in cavities or other dental issues

• High or low blood pressure

• Sluggish digestion (like bloating, constipation, reflux)

• Continued hair loss (beyond what’s normal postpartum)

• Super painful periods and/or irregular cycles

• Dry skin and/or nails that don’t grow/break easily

Not assessing minerals for moms and prioritizing replenishment is an enormous missed opportunity!

Women are simply more at risk of mineral imbalance, but moms are especially.

But fixing it is not just about taking a magnesium supplement and drinking electrolytes. It’s about knowing exactly what’s happening with your mineral stores so you can adjust your nutrition and any supplements accordingly.

Yet unfortunately, minerals are not commonly tested (at least fully or properly), so deficiencies are frequently undetected and overlooked.

If anything, a routine blood panel may check some electrolytes like sodium and potassium. But it’s important to understand that blood levels of these minerals are tightly monitored by the body in order to maintain a specific amount and not go too high or too low, which can be dangerous.

This means that bloodwork doesn’t provide a true reflection of the overall mineral status of your body.

In comparison, your hair provides a very accurate reflection of your entire body’s mineral stores. In fact, Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA) is an incredible way to assess your mineral levels, particularly what’s going on inside your cells!

(As hair forms, it’s exposed to your body’s internal environment. Once hair reaches the surface of your skin, it essentially “locks in” what’s been accumulated as it formed! Cool, right?)

This basically means your hair contains a “metabolic blueprint”— a record of your body’s mineral status— that has occurred over the last 3-4 months.

And because the HTMA can better test your mineral levels, it can detect imbalances, deficiencies, and excesses— and often earlier than they’d ever show up on bloodwork!

The HTMA also shows key mineral ratios that tell us so much about different things happening in your body. From just 1 small sample of hair, we can assess things like your nervous system state and stage of stress, adrenal function, blood sugar regulation, digestive health, and more!

This is a huge reason why the HTMA is such an amazing test (on top of its affordability and accessibility)— especially for moms.

No lab appointments to schedule or babysitters to coordinate, so that you can get there on time. You just take your own test at home in less than 5 minutes.

Want to see an example of this test in action?

In the snippet from a postpartum client’s HTMA report, you can see how most of her minerals are below the reference range. This pattern— especially when the first four minerals are low— is a surefire sign of depletion and is often indicative of burnout.

And when I reviewed her mineral ratios, I was able to determine that not only did she need overall replenishment, but also:

Her adrenals needed lots of support.

We like to see the “adrenal ratio” of Na/Mg between 2 and 6, and hers was .43.

And her “vitality ratio” (Na/K)—another sign of adrenal health but also marker of stress— was 1, whereas we like to see it between 1.4-3.4.

Her blood sugar needed attention.

A high Ca/Mg ratio— hers was 13.91 compared to the optimal range of 3.3-8.5— is a sign of low blood sugar, which is stressful for the body and adds more work to already-under-functioning adrenal glands.

Her body wasn’t able to properly utilize thyroid hormones.

Her high thyroid ratio— 32 compared to an optimal range of 2.2-6.2— reflects what we call “cellular hypothyroidism.” High calcium to potassium slows the thyroid and reduces cellular sensitivity to thyroid hormones (so even if her thyroid was producing enough hormones, it was harder for her body to use them.)

Based on all of her findings, we were able to create a fully customized plan to help better nourish her body and address her nutrient needs and imbalances through her diet, targeted supplements, and even lifestyle shifts to help her get the restoration and stress relief she actually needed!

Having this information meant she could essentially take a “shortcut” on her healing journey— by understanding the exact root causes of her symptoms, we could simplify the process for her and personalize it according to her needs.

Want to know what’s really going on with your minerals— and get to the root of those lingering symptoms for good?

Inside the Deep Dig, we take the guesswork out and help you rebuild your health from the inside out.

With this one-time consultation, you’ll take your own mineral test (HTMA), and we’ll dive into your health history, uncover hidden imbalances, and connect the dots between how you’re feeling and what your body’s asking for.

You’ll walk away with a personalized, doable roadmap to begin better supporting your body, boosting your energy, and finally start feeling like you again (and without burning out or obsessing over every little thing!)