On social media, a bizarre trend seems to be emerging: surprise pregnancies when taking the diabetes drug Ozempic and its sister weight loss shot Wegovy.
As People reports, there are a few reasons why people might be getting pregnant unexpectedly when taking these semaglutide-based injectable drugs.
For one thing, Dr. Iman Saleh — an obstetrician, gynecologist, and obesity medicine doctor at New York's Northwell Health system — tells People that through a roundabout mechanism, the weight people lose on these drugs may be making them more fertile.
"Our fat cells produce estrogen and estrogen can have a negative effect on our ovaries in terms of decreased or dysfunction of ovulation," Saleh explains. "Once you lose that weight, even if it's very slight, [you can] become more fertile and get pregnant."
Additionally, the doctor said, the changes in one's stomach lining that might result from taking semaglutide-based drugs — which are known to mimic the feeling of fullness in the gut — could affect birth control as well.
"As we use these medications to make people [feel] fuller, the absorption changes in our body," Saleh says. "And therefore the absorption of patients on birth control can affect the efficacy of the birth control."
Indeed, people on social networks like Reddit and TikTok have begun sharing their "Ozempic Baby" stories — including, strikingly, those who said they were infertile before taking the shots.
"I’ve been infertile for 14 years and after 2 months of taking OZ I am now pregnant," one user shared on the r/Ozempic subreddit. "So shocking to say the least."
"I was on birth control and this pregnancy was very much unplanned," another wrote in the comments of a thread about Ozempic pregnancies. "I have a long history of miscarriages and a stillbirth and had decided to stop trying to conceive two years ago, and during that time started Ozempic and lost 70 pounds."
So prevalent is this phenomenon that Novo Nordisk, which makes both, has set up a website specifically for people to report when they've gotten pregnant on Wegovy.
While the one-two punch of weight loss and pregnancy may come as a happy surprise for some, it carries with it some pretty serious risks.
According to Novo's website, Wegovy "may cause fetal harm," and the company suggests that once someone realizes they're pregnant, they should "discontinue" use of the drug.
Things are a bit more complicated for Ozempic users because diabetes also presents risks to fetuses. According to the drug's label, people who take it are advised to keep using it "only if the potential benefit justifies the potential risk to the fetus."
Meanwhile, there's currently a clinical trial underway to study how Wegovy affects pregnant people — but we'll have to wait until 2027 to get those results.
More on Wegovy: Medicare Says It Will Start Paying for Wegovy
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