Updated October 22, 2026, 10:25 a.m. ET
Kayla Barnes-Lentz – the 35-year-old who has built a cult following in the longevity field as the world’s most publicly measured woman – is pregnant. As of this writing, she is exactly seven weeks and two days pregnant. There are exactly 229 days until her due date on June 5. Why do we know all these details? Because Barnes-Lentz, as she has done for years, leaked her health indicators to the world. Her pregnancy will be no different, with its own protocol.
During the first trimester, she prioritizes protein and whole foods and performs lab tests of her complete blood count and ferritin. In the second trimester she will start working on the pelvic floor with a specialist, and in the third she will focus on sleeping position, nervous system regulation and blood pressure monitoring, even at home. Some of her findings are already well known, including eating more small meals each day throughout pregnancy.
If you follow Barnes-Lentz on Instagram, you’ll see this unfold. She tries foods like kefir, prunes, and Zen basil pudding because high progesterone during pregnancy slows gut motility. She plans to gather more than 9,000 biomarkers and 40 million data points throughout her pregnancy and postpartum. Not all doctors approve of this level of granular testing. For Barnes-Lentz, it’s a passion.
During a phone call, however, she explains that she’s just like any other pregnant woman with confusing cravings. Like meatloaf. “I definitely haven’t thought about meatloaf in over a decade,” she says. “I mean, probably even longer. So I found it really interesting, and I did it. I did it in a very healthy way from scratch, and it was OK, I will say. It’s not a super desirable food, to be honest.”
Barnes-Letz chats with USA TODAY about everything she’s up to in the Q&A below.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Question: How do you feel? This is very big news. Congratulations!
Answer: I know! It’s so exciting. I feel really good. I mean, I have some symptoms, but they’re really mild, a little less energy, a little bit of mild nausea. But overall, I mean, I feel so good, and I’m also super excited for it (pregnancy).
Feel free to share how much or how little you want. But is this something you were actively preparing for? What were you thinking about the timing?
From a data perspective, I always knew that, at least during our first pregnancy, I wanted to get the most in-depth data collection ever. So yes, it’s been on my mind for a while. When it came to our efforts, I knew I really wanted to finish my book first, and I’ve had so many amazing opportunities over the past two years to travel and speak all over the place. I actually got pregnant the same day I turned in my book manuscript, which was so much fun.
Tell me about the book.
It will be called “Female Longevity Protocol” and will be released with Harper Collins (in June). I’d like to think it’s like the practical guide to the female body. We can track almost every system in the body and make early diagnoses, but this is also backed by incredibly scientific data. So I’m using a female doctor who specializes in women’s health to check the entire book. Then I have another woman with a PhD to check out the entire book, who also specializes in women’s health and longevity. And then I have over 25 contributing doctors or doctoral students throughout the book and each chapter. So we delve into everything from hormonal changes to ovarian aging to menopause to hormones to gut health, and we have all the basics, but then we dive into a lot of things that aren’t really common and we talk about a lot of the more advanced things that I do. I hope this is just the complete guide.
Is pregnancy going to be a part of it or is it something separate?
I think it will probably be separate. We talk about it of course in the book because it’s interesting. Like things you develop during pregnancy. So let’s say maybe like gestational diabetes or preeclampsia. These are actually important factors for your longevity. So, if you develop any of these conditions during pregnancy, it can significantly increase your risk of developing conditions, primarily cardiovascular and metabolic problems, later in life. So this is part of the female longevity protocol, but we won’t focus on it much.
How was your pregnancy health-wise?
From a health standpoint, everything we want to be, in terms of optimal ranges, is there, and yes, I mean, just a little bit at a lower energy, which is normal. But I’ve also had some fun discoveries, just because I have so much data and I’m observing things, and I have such a big baseline, like so many changes. I mean, your blood sugar during the first trimester changes a lot. Your blood sugar is very low because your body is doing so much work and mobilizing so many reserves. So I changed the way I ate. Typically before I would just eat two meals and then a protein shake, and now I have to eat smaller meals throughout the day to keep my blood sugar up because it was just too low on the CGM. I also monitor every bowel movement and as progesterone increases, which is very healthy and natural, it just changes your intestinal motility. So this is an interesting discovery. Obviously, (heart rate variability) and resting heart rate totally change. So there have already been a lot of interesting discoveries.
How did you plan your entire pregnancy protocol?
I have been planning this with Dr. Sara Szal… She has been my longevity physician consultant for a while now, a Harvard trained OB/GYN. But I also have many other experts or doctors, doctors, etc. One area we will delve even further into is changes in the oral microbiome during pregnancy.
This will be different from my usual protocol. First, we’re actually doing more testing than I normally would. Instead, we do an ultra-comprehensive analysis every month, not every quarter. Some tests I do more frequently. But then we’re going to do a lot of pregnancy-specific things. So there are many new tests that can test for gestational diabetes very early. I will also do my own daily fetal monitoring later in the pregnancy. So I’ll do at home ultrasounds and home fetal monitoring, like heart rate and everything else, to literally get an unprecedented data set. (Editor’s note: This close monitoring is not recommended by doctors). As you know, women generally don’t have access to these clinical grade tracking devices at home, and we’re also going to dive really deep into things like the pelvic floor, as in my current protocol, I only do pelvic floor testing twice a year. Now I do this four times throughout the pregnancy. I also do vaginal microbiome testing every month. I do a sort of gut microbiome test every month. I wouldn’t usually do it at these frequencies, but since we just want to see the changes, I think it will be important to do them even more frequently than before. And then, of course, anything specific to pregnancy will be new to this protocol as well, like early testing for gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, hypertension and all that kind of stuff.
How would you explain to your child why you wanted to follow all these things?
I would like to lead the part of the conversation or the reasoning for loving following your passion because it truly is my passion. I was doing it when no one was looking for a very long time, and I was doing it when it wasn’t cool and all that. So, I think number 1, talking about following your passion is important. I think number 2 is just explaining how health works to our kids when it makes sense, when you know there are a lot of things that can give you better health, and there are a lot of things that can give you less optimal health. And I think the third piece is wanting to at least participate in opening a conversation. We know this is all “n of 1”. So just because something works perfectly for me on my protocol, that’s one of the main reasons why I have the podcast. Because I want doctors with clinical experience to be able to talk about what works for women as a whole, rather than just what works for me. But I’ll also be happy to share that, in at least a small way, I want to help improve the conversation and start to potentially address a little bit of the lack of testing for women. Not only are women undertested, but I mean, pregnant women are by far one of the most undertested groups in the world. So we don’t really have a lot of information about pregnant women.
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