Biotechnology

A Biohacker Gives Birth

When I got pregnant, my quest for optimization got weirder and more wonderful. 

Sarah Rose Siskind | 6.27.2026 7:30 AM

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(Illustration: Adani Samat. Photo: Sarah Siskind/Oura/Boww111)

My six-pack began to disappear in the fourth month of my pregnancy, with the final pack officially vanishing in week 15.

My disappearing abs were just one of many demoralizing trade-offs my career as a biohacker took when I got pregnant. Since adolescence, I have been genetically blessed with visible abs. While I would like to credit my hard work, six-packs are mostly just the product of weight distribution and low body fat. You cannot control where your body adds fat, even subcutaneous fat. But optimizing my body's performance has been a delightful hobby since the lockdown, when I locked in on biohacking.

Side note: I don't use the phrase "we're pregnant" since Nick Gillespie, Reason editor at large and also my husband, endured very little of the pregnancy experience.

Pregnancy meant my commitment to biohacking was about to get more intense—even as the tools available were about to get less useful. I had become someone else's sensory deprivation tank. The biohacker had become the biohack-ee. Biohacking is the simple application of science and tech to change your body however you desire. A whole market has sprung up so that a whole new cadre of self-experimenters can be absolutely insufferable at parties. Whatever your ailment or desired outcome, there's a supplement or smart app for it. 

But these tools are meant for a certain body. Which is to say, a body that does not currently contain another body. 

In some ways, my previous biohacking habits had prepared me for pregnancy. I am an ultramarathon runner. So when my feet swelled, I had my choice of running shoes with expandable laces and a wide toe box. I had a reserve of electrolytes at the ready. I had heard there was even a small athletic advantage to being pregnant: Your blood supply increases during pregnancy. In fact, blood volume increases by up to 50 percent. This is basically blood doping, when done by nongestators. I hoped, perhaps a little too fervently, that this might improve my time in my first post-pregnancy race. (It did........

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