Arm day. Leg day. Ice baths. Protein shakes. Protein coffee. Protein everything. In recent years, an entire industry has cropped up around optimizing athletic performance, with a new product or service for every muscle and every vitamin deficiency you can name. 

But that same fervent attention to detail fizzles when the subject turns to maternal health. What would happen if the world treated every pregnancy with the same focus and intention that star athletes receive? 

If that sounds like a stretch (pun intended), the two have more in common than you’d expect. Pregnancy places extraordinary physical demands on the human body that require specialized care and attention, much like an athlete training for a major tournament. And yet, millions of women around the world still lack access to the essential nutritional support that could mean the difference between a healthy pregnancy and one that risks low birthweight, premature delivery, lasting developmental harm for a child, or could even be life threatening. That gap is part of a bigger pattern. Women spend 25% more of their lives in poor health than men, only 2% of medical research funding is spent on pregnancy, and only 6% of sports medicine research focuses on women. 

To help close this glaring gap in maternal health and nutrition, the WTA Foundation's Global Women's Health Fund is raising funds in support of UNICEF's efforts to bring essential nutrition supplies and services, such as prenatal vitamins and nutrition counseling, directly into the hands of moms in high-need countries around the world, supporting healthy pregnancies and giving children a healthy start in life. 

Bodies Under Pressure

When we watch a tennis player return a 120 mph (193 km/h) serve, we know hours of meticulous training went into that performance. But pulling it off also depends on getting the fundamentals right, from enough protein to support muscle recovery to adequate iron and Vitamin D to keep the body functioning at its best.

Yet while athletes are celebrated for exceptional physical feats and endurance, pregnancy places similarly extraordinary demands that go uncelebrated. The physical toll of growing a new human is immense, requiring the body to build new organs, expand a mother’s blood supply, and support critical brain and nervous system development.

But here's where the comparison breaks down. The world’s elite athletes have entire teams behind them, including training budgets, coaches, professional endorsements, and entire ecosystems dedicated to maximizing their performance. Many pregnant women, meanwhile, are left to navigate this critical period with far less support. In low- and middle-income countries, nine in ten women lack access to prenatal vitamins.

What’s more, every 2 minutes, a woman dies from pregnancy and childbirth, and almost all of those deaths are preventable. That adds up to more than 700 deaths every day, with 92% of those occurring in low- and middle-income countries. Across the globe, women spend 25% more of their lives in poor health than men do. That time lost adds up fast, costing women far more than just time spent on the sidelines. 

Pumping Iron

Just as athletes need proper fuel to perform at their best,  pregnancy places its own nutritional demands on the body.  Iron is especially important because it helps make hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body. When iron levels are low, both physical and mental performance can suffer, with fatigue setting in more easily and concentration becoming harder to maintain.

For pregnant women, the stakes are even higher. Iron deficiency is linked to anemia, or a lack of healthy red blood cells, and low iron levels during pregnancy is associated with serious complications including miscarriage and low birthweight. Babies born to iron-deficient mothers are also more likely to experience delays in cognitive and motor development, with effects that can persist well beyond infancy. 

The recommended daily iron intake rises from 18mg for women of reproductive age to 27mg during pregnancy. But here’s the scale of the problem: anemia affects three in ten women globally, with almost no meaningful progress made in the last 20 years. Among pregnant women, the figure rises to around one in three. 

Playing Doubles: Vitamin D and Calcium

In tennis, a strong doubles team depends on collaboration. Some nutrients have a similar relationship, including vitamin D and calcium, not to mention folate and iodine. 

Calcium is an essential mineral that helps build and maintain strong bones. But the body also needs adequate vitamin D to absorb calcium effectively. This means that even when someone consumes enough calcium, a vitamin D deficiency can limit how much the body is able to use. Meanwhile, folate is a critical nutrient in prenatal support, but depends on proper iodine intake for absorption — and iodine requirements can increase more than 50% during pregnancy. Iodine deficiency during pregnancy is serious. It can cause maternal and fetal hyperthyroidism and impair long-term neurological development. 

These kinds of partnerships are especially important during pregnancy and breastfeeding, when women need a carefully balanced range of nutrients to support both their own health and their baby’s development. Yet without access to nutritious food, supplements, and quality prenatal care, millions of women struggle to get enough of these essential nutrients.

What We Can Do to Help Close the Nutrition Gap for Mothers

Luckily, there are ways to help close this gap for mothers around the world within our lifetimes. For example, the WTA, the leading sports league for women's health, has done serious work in this field, with the belief that breaking down barriers for women in sports and health go hand in hand. That’s why the WTA Foundation's Global Women's Health Fund is supporting UNICEF's efforts to improve access to essential health and nutrition resources for women and children worldwide, including through access to prenatal vitamins. Since 2024, the WTA Foundation has raised funds to help support 1.5 million mothers, uniting the voices of elite athletes and inviting a global audience of over one billion tennis fans to rally the world together to support mothers.

The effort is continuing with support from the WTA’s game changers, represented by tennis superstars Marion Bartoli, Maria Sharapova, Caroline Wozniacki, Elina Svitolina, Daniela Hantuchová, and Martina Hingis, who are lending their voices and platforms to this effort. Athletes know how much performance depends on giving the body what it needs. For mothers, the stakes are even greater.

The cost of making a big difference is surprisingly small. For as little as $2.50, you can help provide prenatal vitamins for an entire pregnancy. That’s less than the cost of a tennis ball, or a cup of protein-packed coffee. You can join in and help make a difference by taking part in one of Global Citizen’s action journeys on maternal health and child nutrition, or visit the WTA Foundation’s page to learn more. 

Somewhere in the world, a future athlete is being born today. Whether that child gets the nutritional foundation they need to grow and thrive depends in part on the choices we make now. The interventions already exist. What’s now needed is the funding and political support to make sure they reach the women and children who need them most.