DR. LESLIE STONE'S PREGNANCY REVOLUTION

How Personalized Care Could Save a Generation

COURTNEY MCGEE

2025

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Dr. Leslie Stone has delivered over 5,000 babies during her four-decade career in medicine — and she’s not done revolutionizing maternal care. A board-certified family practitioner with a fellowship in surgical obstetrics, Dr. Stone is now on a mission that goes far beyond the delivery room. Her goal? To rewrite the narrative around preconception and pregnancy care, using personalized functional medicine and genetics to prevent chronic disease, starting before birth.

“We’ve been disempowered,” said Dr. Stone in an interview with TereZa Hakobyan-Lolli and Anthony Lolli, Editors-in-Chief of longevity and wellness platform Biohack Yourself, for the influential upcoming women’s health documentary, “sHEALed.” “We think there’s nothing we can do to improve our children’s health outcomes. That’s simply not true. The science is here, and it’s time we put it into practice.”

As the founder of Grow Baby Health, Dr. Stone is bringing cutting-edge genomics, systems medicine, and lifestyle interventions into the most critical — and often overlooked — phase of life: the window before and during pregnancy.

The sHEALed Documentary is the sister documentary to Biohack Yourself, which became a massive success after exploding on the scene in December 2024 and ignited a firestorm of interest in information focused on health and longevity. Biohack Yourself features 114 prominent and respected high-profile politicians, doctors, bestselling authors, Ph.D.s, M.D.s, scientists, chemists, inventors, biotech investors, and world-renowned academics. Stemming from the success of Biohack Yourself, TereZa Hakobyan-Lolli and Anthony Lolli have grown Biohack Yourself Media to become the number one resource for health news, publishing over 500 articles ranging from breaking news to peer reviewed content.

The Crisis: Chronic Disease Starts in the Womb

Dr. Stone’s message lands at a pivotal moment. Autism, ADHD, obesity, diabetes, and asthma are on the rise. Infertility and pregnancy complications like preeclampsia and preterm birth are becoming alarmingly common. For Stone, these trends aren’t just unfortunate — they’re preventable.

“The standard of care is excellent for emergencies,” she says. “But it’s failing when it comes to chronic disease prevention. We’re still operating in a ‘one disease, one solution’ model. That’s outdated.”

She cites a systemic shift in medicine starting in the 1990s, when systems biology and the “omics revolution” — genomics, metabolomics, microbiomics — began revealing just how interconnected our health truly is. Instead of waiting for disease to strike, we now have the tools to predict, prevent, and personalize care. And no time in life is more responsive to this approach than pregnancy.

“There is no period more powerful for shaping long-term health than the preconception phase and pregnancy,” says Stone. “This is where resilience is built — or lost — for both the mother and child.”

Enter Grow Baby Health

Stone’s approach through Grow Baby Health blends standard medical care with functional and personalized interventions. Patients receive baseline labs alongside genetic analysis of 42 key gene variants, assessments of micronutrient levels, and evaluations of environmental and lifestyle vulnerabilities. The goal? To identify risks early and intervene — with precision.

“We target methylation, vitamin D metabolism, glucose handling, detoxification, inflammation — all of it,” Stone explains. “Then we adjust throughout pregnancy, trimester by trimester, based on real data.”

This is not a theoretical exercise. The program has delivered measurable results:

80% reduction in preterm birth
95% reduction in preeclampsia
Fewer small-for-gestational-age babies
Improved maternal mental health and infant developmental outcomes

“You’re not just avoiding complications,” she emphasizes. “You’re building resilience into your child’s immune system, brain, metabolism, and future potential.”

Genetics Is Not Destiny — But It Is Guidance

One cornerstone of Stone’s work is her collaboration with DNALife and Nordic Laboratories, which provide the genomics testing used in her clinic. But Stone is quick to correct misconceptions about DNA.

“We’re not talking about mutations — we’re talking about expressions,” she says. “Your genes are your scaffolding, but you can modify how they behave.”

Take the MTHFR gene, for example — a widely discussed variant that affects methylation, a critical process in fetal development. “If a woman with this gene variant takes unmethylated folic acid, it can actually hinder development,” Stone warns. “But if she supplements correctly, she can reduce her child’s autism risk by up to 700%.”

Vitamin D receptor (VDR) variants are another focus. Women with this gene variant are more likely to be deficient, even with sun exposure or supplementation. The consequences? Increased risks of autoimmune diseases, infections, gestational diabetes, and premature birth.

“If I know you have a VDR variant, I won’t start you on a low dose. I’ll start you high, because I know your receptors need more to work properly,” says Stone.

A Family Affair, a Global Mission

Dr. Stone’s daughter is her partner in this revolution. Together, they turned Grow Baby Health into a comprehensive, community-based program. Patients attend group visits by trimester, where they receive personalized care plans, education, and peer support — a model inspired by the "centered pregnancy" approach shown to improve outcomes.

“It’s not just a doctor-patient transaction,” Stone says. “It’s community. It’s empowerment.”

Their 400+ patients so far have proven the model works. Now, the Stones are working to scale this approach globally, with ambitions to integrate it into mainstream policy and public health.

“We want personalized and precise testing to be standard care,” Stone says. “Preventive nutrition, individualized protocols, AI tools to assist overworked doctors — this isn’t futuristic. It’s possible now.”

Action Steps: How You Can Optimize Pregnancy and Future Health

Whether you're planning a family or already expecting, Dr. Stone offers practical, science-backed steps for parents:

1. Start Three Months Before Conception: Sperm and egg health can be dramatically improved in just 90 days with targeted nutrition and lifestyle changes. “You can get better eggs, better sperm, and a better outcome,” Stone emphasizes.

2. Know Your Genes — And Your Partner’s: Genetic analysis can reveal how to supplement effectively, especially for methylation (e.g., MTHFR), vitamin D, detox pathways, and inflammation.

3. Optimize Key Nutrients: Focus on vitamin D, folate (in methylated form), magnesium, omega-3s, and antioxidants. Work with a practitioner who understands functional dosing based on your individual biochemistry.

4. Use Lifestyle Interventions for Rapid Change: Nutrition can alter gene expression in as little as six hours. Even simple acts like listening to your favorite music for 15 minutes can improve placental blood flow.

5. Test, Don’t Guess: Pair genomics with testing for hormone metabolites, organic acids, the microbiome, and nutrient levels. “It’s about understanding how your body is functioning, not just your DNA,” says Stone.

6. Support Dad, Too: Up to 50% of infertility is male factor. Oxidative stress, diet, and lifestyle all impact sperm quality — and can be improved.

A Call to Action

For Dr. Stone, this isn’t just medicine — it’s a movement. Her rallying cry is a call to action for women, families, doctors, and policymakers alike.

“Demand more. Personalized health is no longer a luxury. It’s a necessity,” she urges.

The stakes are high, but the potential is profound. If this model were adopted broadly in the U.S., Stone estimates that preterm births could drop by 80% — saving $20 billion annually in healthcare costs. More importantly, it could dramatically reduce chronic disease in children and build a healthier, more resilient generation.

“Healthy mom. Healthy baby. Healthy world,” she says. “Our globe is crumbling. Our health is crumbling. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can save humanity — starting in the womb.”

Check here for information about the upcoming spring 2025 edition Biohack Yourself Magazine, where the team at Biohack Yourself Media dives deeper into their insights on biohacking, longevity and cutting-edge wellness strategies. Biohack Yourself Magazine is the first peer-reviewed longevity publication with international distribution across the U.S. and Canada, bringing science-backed health optimization, functional medicine and performance-driven breakthroughs to a broader audience. Pick up a copy at major retailers, including Barber & Noble, Books-A-Million, Publix, Kroger, Indigo/Chapters, and select fitness gyms and pharmacies.