General dietary advice tells you what a healthy plate looks like. Functional nutrition asks a different question: what does your body need, right now, given your history, your symptoms, and your biology?

I spent fifteen years in pharmaceutical research before becoming a nutritional therapist, and I bring that same rigour to my practice. We look at the whole picture — digestion, sleep, energy, lab results, medications — and we look for mechanisms, not just symptoms. Two women with the same fatigue can have two completely different causes. The recommendations that follow are therefore never the same.

It’s not about restriction or perfection. It’s about understanding what your body is trying to tell you, and giving it what it’s missing.

Pregnancy is the most metabolically demanding project a body will ever undertake. You are building a brain, a placenta, an immune system — and every single building block comes from the mother’s reserves.

The nutrients that matter most are often the ones we talk about least: choline for the baby’s brain development, iodine for the thyroid, omega-3 DHA, iron, vitamin D, and adequate protein — which becomes especially important in the second and third trimesters. What I see in practice is that many women enter pregnancy with reserves that are already low, particularly iron and vitamin D, and standard prenatal advice doesn’t always catch this.

This is why I always recommend a proper biological workup, ideally before conception. A blood test interpreted with functional reference ranges — not just “you’re within the norm” — can change everything about how a pregnancy feels.

Sleep deprivation is real, of course. But when a mother tells me she feels “empty,” that her brain is foggy, that her hair is falling out, that she cries more easily than before — I don’t accept “that’s just motherhood” as an answer.

Pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding draw heavily on a woman’s reserves of iron, zinc, B vitamins, omega-3s, and protein. If those reserves aren’t rebuilt, the body keeps running on a deficit. Some researchers call this postnatal depletion, and it can last for years if nothing is done.

The encouraging news is that it responds remarkably well to targeted nutrition. Rebuilding iron stores properly, restoring omega-3 levels, supporting the thyroid — mothers often tell me they feel like themselves again for the first time since the birth. Not because they “pushed through,” but because their biology finally had what it needed.

Breastfeeding is often where mothers sacrifice themselves without realising it. The body prioritises the milk: many nutrients will go to the baby first, drawing on the mother’s reserves if her intake isn’t sufficient.

A nursing mother needs significantly more energy, fluid, protein, and certain micronutrients — particularly iodine, choline, DHA, and B12 — than she did during pregnancy. And practically speaking, she needs food that can be eaten with one hand at 3 a.m. One of the most useful things we do in consultation is make nourishment realistic: batch-cooked soups and broths, protein-rich snacks within arm’s reach, simple frameworks instead of complicated meal plans.

I also reassure mothers on one point: except in specific situations, you rarely need to restrict your own diet “for the baby.” Overly restrictive eating during breastfeeding usually harms the mother more than it helps the child.

My honest view is: supplements can be genuinely useful, and the market is also full of products that are poorly dosed, poorly absorbed, or simply unnecessary.

This is where my pharmacist training matters most. Not all forms of a nutrient are equal — the type of iron or magnesium in a product changes how well it works and how well you tolerate it. Doses need to match actual needs, ideally confirmed by blood work. And interactions are real: iron supplements, for example, are a very common cause of constipation in pregnancy, and they also interfere with the absorption of other nutrients and certain medications if taken at the wrong time.

So my approach is simple: test rather than guess, choose quality over quantity, and never stack products without a reason. Often, the most powerful intervention is removing supplements rather than adding them.

It’s true, and it goes even further than most parents imagine. Researchers now talk about the first 1,000 days — the window from conception to a child’s second birthday — as the period that shapes long-term health more than any other. This is when the brain, the immune system, the metabolism, and the gut are being built, and nutrition is one of the main raw materials.

What’s fascinating is that food doesn’t only feed the baby — it sends instructions. Through what’s called nutritional programming, the mother’s diet and nutrient status during pregnancy can influence how the baby’s genes are expressed. Not which genes the child has, but which ones are switched on or quietened. The same body, with the same DNA, can be set on slightly different tracks depending on the terrain it develops in.

I want to be careful here, because this can sound like pressure, and that’s the opposite of my intention. It doesn’t mean a mother has to be perfect — biology is forgiving, and there is enormous room to act before, during, and after pregnancy. What it means is that this window is an extraordinary opportunity, not a verdict. Small, well-targeted changes in the first 1,000 days carry more weight than almost anything we do later.

A central one, and it’s one of the clearest examples of how connected mother and child are. A baby’s gut is essentially seeded at birth and in the first months — by the mode of delivery, by skin contact, by breast milk, and by the mother’s own microbiome. Breast milk in particular contains special sugars whose only job is to feed the baby’s beneficial bacteria. The body literally produces food for the microbiome before the baby eats anything else.

This early gut colonisation helps train the immune system, which is why it’s linked with things like digestion, eczema, and allergy risk. In my practice I often see the connection from the other direction: a mother with an imbalanced gut, and a baby with reflux, colic, or skin issues. Mother and child frequently share the same terrain.

That’s never about blame — mothers carry enough guilt already. It’s about leverage. Supporting the mother’s gut through diet, and protecting the baby’s early microbiome through realistic, evidence-based choices, is one of the highest-return things we can do. Caring for the mother is caring for the baby.

Three things. First, that the window between roughly four and twelve months is precious: babies are naturally more open to new tastes and textures during this period, so variety matters more than perfection. Offering a wide palette of vegetables, textures, and even bitter flavours early on makes life easier later.

Second, that iron becomes critical around six months, when the baby’s birth reserves run out. Iron-rich foods deserve a central place from the start of diversification — this is one of the most common gaps I see.

And third, that mealtime atmosphere shapes eating as much as the food itself. A baby learns to eat in connection, by watching you eat, without pressure. The calmer the table, the more adventurous the eater.

Some food neophobia is completely normal, especially between two and six years old — it’s a developmental phase, and most children move through it with patient, pressure-free exposure.

But there are signals that suggest something more is going on: a child who accepts fewer than about twenty foods, who eliminates entire food categories, who gags or panics at certain textures, whose growth is faltering, or whose mealtimes have become a source of distress for the whole family. In those cases, “he’ll grow out of it” is not enough — and parents deserve to hear that this is not their failure.

These situations often have a real underlying component: sensory sensitivities, oral-motor difficulties, digestive discomfort, micronutrient deficiencies that themselves reduce appetite. I work with structured, gradual approaches to food exploration, alongside paediatricians, speech therapists, and occupational therapists when needed. Progress is rarely instant, but it is very real — and the relief in families when meals stop being a battlefield is one of the most rewarding parts of my work.

The first consultation is long — we take the time to go through health history, digestion, sleep, energy, eating habits, medications, and any existing lab results. For children, I also ask a lot about pregnancy, birth, and the first months, because that’s often where the story begins.

From there, each family leaves with a clear, personalised roadmap: realistic food adjustments, targeted supplementation only where justified, and often a request for specific blood work so we’re acting on data rather than assumptions. Follow-up consultations adapt the plan as the body responds.

I see patients at my practice in Geneva and by teleconsultation, in French and English — which works particularly well for busy mothers and for follow-ups.

Preventively is actually the ideal moment. Preparing the body before conception, building reserves during pregnancy for a smoother postpartum, setting up diversification well before difficulties appear — prevention in nutrition is quiet, but it’s where the biggest gains are.

The reality, as with so many things, is that most people come once the exhaustion or the mealtime battles have become routine. I understand it completely — life with young children moves fast, and mothers put themselves last. But your blood work doesn’t have to be “bad enough” and your child’s eating doesn’t have to be “severe enough” to deserve attention. Feeling persistently unlike yourself is reason enough.