Countless women are sharing their stories of unexpected pregnancies, dubbed "Ozempic babies," on social media due to the popular obesity drug's rising effect on conception.
Dr. Jody Dushay, a physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, said the effect of early exposure on the fetus is unknown because these medicines haven't been studied in people who are pregnant.
She recommends women stop taking these types of drugs at least two months before trying to get pregnant, as directed in their prescribing information.
Both medications, Ozempic and Mounjaro, are part of a class of drugs called GLP-1 receptor agonists, which function by mimicking hormones in the gut in relation to insulin regulation and appetite.
They're both approved to treat type 2 diabetes, and each has twin medicines approved for weight loss.
The medicines have been shown to help people lose 15% to 20% of their body weight, on average, in clinical trials, according to CNN.
The way GLP-1 drugs work could lead to more pregnancies as well as cause caution about their use in early pregnancy.
Dr. Daniel Drucker, a professor and researcher at the University of Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital and a pioneer of research into GLP-1, explained,
"If you start on these medicines and then you lose 5, 10, or 15% of your body weight, very often, you will have an improvement in ovulation."
Furthermore, warnings in the prescribing information for Mounjaro and another drug known as Zepbound state that the drug may render birth control pills less effective.
While they both warn about this explicitly on their labels, Ozempic and similar brands like Wegovy only warn more broadly about the absorption of any drugs taken orally.
Though GLP-1 medicines may increase fertility, not much is known about their safety during pregnancy.
"The more these medications are used, the more women will get pregnant while taking them, and we will in that way accumulate data on the risk of early pregnancy exposure," Dushay explained.
Simply put, "we basically gather data from 'accidents' as we do for most drugs."
Catera Bentley and her husband, from Steele, Alabama, had been trying to have a child for over two years, but Bently's doctor had to give her the news that she may not be able to conceive due to her history of polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS.
Five months prior, Bentley started taking Mounjaro for weight loss, ultimately slimming 40 pounds down.
As she lost the weight, Bently hoped it would also increase her chances of getting pregnant, following other success stories she had heard about.
"It just made me feel like a whole new person," she said. "I was in a better mood every single day."
