“Ozempian babies”: sudden pregnancy raises questions

This is the case of the Catera Bentley. A woman living in Steele, Alabama, became pregnant five months after she started taking Mujaro for weight loss. Ms Bentley and her husband had been trying to have a baby for more than two years, but the process was difficult because Ms Bentley had polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

In the first months of taking the medication, Katera Bentley lost about 40 pounds, her menstrual cycles (irregular due to PCOS) normalized, and she even felt “happier,” she told CNN.

“I felt like a new person. I was in a better mood every day,” she explained, adding that she hoped losing weight would help her get pregnant. However, when her wish came true – sooner than expected – she became concerned about how it might affect her baby.

There are no studies regarding pregnancy.

“We don’t know the effects of early exposure on the fetus,” Dr. Jody Douchay, a physician who specializes in endocrinology and metabolism at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an assistant professor at Harvard University, confirmed to CNN.

Dr. Dushay recommends that women stop taking these medications two months before trying to become pregnant, as directed in their instructions for use.

Ozempic and Munjaro belong to a class of drugs called GLP-1 receptor agonists, which work by mimicking hormones in the gut involved in regulating insulin and appetite. Both are approved for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, and each has two related drugs approved for weight loss: Wegovy for Ozempic and Zepbound for Mounjaro.

Clinical trials have shown that these medications help patients lose an average of 15 to 20 percent of their body weight. Experts believe that due to the way GLP-1 drugs work, they may cause more pregnancies, so caution should be used when using them in early pregnancy.

“On the one hand, weight loss can generally be associated with increased fertility by restoring normal ovulation in people with PCOS or other causes of abnormal cycles,” said Dr. Daniel Drucker, professor and researcher at Mount Sinai Hospital at the University of Toronto and pioneer of GLP research. -1 at CNN.

In addition, the prescribing information for Mujaro and Zepbound contains a warning that they may make birth control pills less effective.

Although GLP-1 drugs may improve fertility, little is known about their safety during pregnancy. The drug’s makers, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, excluded people from their clinical trials who were pregnant or planning to become pregnant, a common practice when testing new drugs.

Read also: “Ozempic products are not enough”: professionals are looking for an alternative

Document “incidents” for the future

However, experts document “incidents” to gain more and more information available.

“The more these drugs are used, the more women will become pregnant while taking them, and so we will accumulate data on the risk of exposure in early pregnancy,” Dr. Dushay told CNN. In other words, “we collect data on ‘accidents,’ as we do on most drugs.”

Additionally, the few available studies on children whose mothers took GLP-1 early in pregnancy have found no major cause for concern, although the researchers note that more research is needed—and that it is ongoing.

“However, studies done on animals require caution,” Dr. Drucker told CNN. “When animals are given high doses of these drugs, babies born to mice and rats are very often small and sometimes have developmental defects.” Dr. Drucker also cited animal research showing that GLP-1 drugs can reduce the amount of proteins responsible for the transfer of nutrients from mother to fetus, often found in the placenta.

Novo Nordisk has created a registry that collects data on the safety of Vegovi during pregnancy.

An Eli Lilly spokesperson told CNN that the company also plans to open up Zepbound’s pregnancy registry, which was approved late last year.

The fact remains that it is difficult to measure the impact of weight loss medications on pregnancy.

“Currently, unfortunately, it is very difficult to study the effects of these drugs on fertility, since this involves exposing women at high risk of pregnancy to the drug while exposed to the drug, and the risks to the child have not yet been fully analyzed. “Dr. Daniel Skowronsky, director of the Eli Lilly study, told CNN.