Kayla Barnes-Lentz is seven weeks pregnant and plans to log more than 9,000 biomarkers through birth and beyond, a regimen doctors do not widely recommend.
The 35-year-old longevity figure, often called the most publicly measured woman in the world, told USA TODAY she is exactly seven weeks and two days along, with a June 5 due date and 229 days still to go.
She is treating the pregnancy the same way she has treated her public health tracking for years: as an open dataset. That means continuous glucose monitoring, monthly microbiome tests, planned at-home ultrasounds, and a trimester-by-trimester protocol she built with consulting physician Dr. Sara Szal.
An editor’s note in the interview is plain. This level of close monitoring is not widely recommended by doctors.
Barnes-Lentz said she waited to try until her manuscript was essentially done. She got pregnant the same day she turned it in.
The book is titled “Female Longevity Protocol.” Harper Collins is set to publish it in June. She describes it as a field guide to the female body, covering hormones, ovarian aging, menopause, gut health, and early diagnostics, with a female medical doctor and a female PhD fact-checking the full text and more than 25 medical doctors or PhD contributors across chapters.
"From a data standpoint, I always knew that, at least the first pregnancy that we had, I wanted to get the deepest data collection ever. So, yeah, that's been on my mind for a while. In terms of us trying, I knew I wanted to really get my book pretty much done first, and I just had so many incredible opportunities the last couple of years to travel and speak all over. I actually got pregnant the same day that I turned in my book manuscript, which was so fun."
Pregnancy will appear in the book, she said, but will not dominate it. Conditions such as gestational diabetes and preeclampsia matter for later cardiovascular and metabolic risk, so they fit her longevity frame. They will not get heavy focus.
She reports mild symptoms so far: a little less energy and low-level nausea. Overall she says she feels good and is excited.
The data is already shifting. First-trimester glucose can run low as the body mobilizes stores. On a continuous glucose monitor, her levels dipped too far on her old pattern of two meals plus a protein shake. She has switched to smaller meals through the day.
She also logs every bowel movement. Rising progesterone slows gut motility, a normal change she is watching in real time. Heart-rate variability and resting heart rate have moved as well.
"From a health standpoint, everything that we want to be, in terms of optimal ranges, it's there, and yeah, I mean, just a little bit at lower energy, which is to be expected. But I've also had some fun findings too, just because I have so much data and I'm watching things, and I have such a significant baseline, like so many changes. I mean, your glucose in the first trimester changes immensely."
Food cravings showed up in ordinary form. She had not thought about meat loaf in more than a decade, then made a from-scratch “healthy” version. Her verdict: it was okay, not especially desirable.
Barnes-Lentz said she planned the pregnancy protocol with Dr. Sara Szal, a Harvard-trained OB-GYN who has been her consulting longevity physician. Other physicians and PhDs are involved as well, including deeper work on oral microbiome changes in pregnancy.
The testing load is heavier than her regular routine. Ultra-comprehensive labs move from quarterly to monthly. Some tests run even more often. Pregnancy-specific screens for gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and hypertension are added.
Later she plans daily fetal monitoring at home, including ultrasounds and heartbeat checks, to build what she calls an unprecedented dataset. Pelvic-floor testing, usually twice a year on her normal protocol, will run four times during pregnancy. Vaginal microbiome and gut microbiome testing are scheduled every month.
"It'll be different from my regular protocol. One, we're doing actually more testing than I normally would. We're doing a more like ultra-comprehensive every month, not every quarter.... I'm also going to be having in a little later in the pregnancy like my own daily fetal monitoring. So I'll be doing at home like ultrasounds and at-home fetal monitoring like on the heartbeat and all that stuff to just get literally an unprecedented dataset."
Trimester priorities are already mapped. First trimester: protein, whole foods, and labs such as complete blood count and ferritin. Second: pelvic-floor work with a specialist. Third: sleep positioning, nervous-system regulation, and blood-pressure monitoring, including at home. She is also trying foods such as kefir, prune, and zen basil pudding. Followers on Instagram will see the protocol play out in public.
Across pregnancy and postpartum she aims to gather more than 9,000 biomarkers and 40 million data points.
Barnes-Lentz frames the project as passion first. She says she tracked this way when nobody was looking and when it was not fashionable. She also wants to explain health tradeoffs to her child when the time is right, and to push a wider point: women are undertested, and pregnant women are among the least tested groups of all.
She is careful on one boundary. This is an n-of-1 project. What works on her protocol is not a clinical rule for every woman. That is why she runs a podcast that brings in doctors with broader clinical experience.
That distinction matters. Personal discipline and open curiosity about women’s health gaps are one thing. Turning a single influencer’s extreme sensor stack into a template for ordinary prenatal care is another. The interview’s own editor’s note already flags that physicians do not widely recommend this intensity of monitoring.
Healthy habits and honest data beat neglect every time. A public science project built on one pregnancy still is not a substitute for standard medical judgment.
