If you missed the last chapter of the story weight loss drugs is becoming mainstream, nowadays everyone is talking about #OzempicChildren.
Over the past year or more, people using prescription drugs for weight loss have not only Ozempic but also other popular injectable GLP-1 agonists – took to social media to share stories of unexpected development pregnantoften after years of struggling with infertility or even while on birth control pills. As more stories went viral, the media went so far as to declare Ozempian baby boom. Although the idea that the popularity of weight loss drugs leads to a significant increase in fertility has not yet been confirmed. according toit turns out there are There are a few important things that any woman of childbearing age should know when taking GLP-1 medications—and not all of them are necessarily known.
Example: the UK equivalent of the FDA has recently emerged. sound the alarm informing women that some popular weight loss medications may cause oral contraceptive failure and also pose a potential risk to unborn children. The first is not really breaking news; The fact that some weight loss drugs may interfere with the proper action of oral contraceptives is explicitly stated packaging insert. However, since many people buy off-brand, complex weight loss medicationsoften without proper supervision from a health care professional, many women are unaware of this risk.
Details to know: Tirzepatide for weight loss (including the brand-name drugs Zepbound and Mounjaro) may interfere with the absorption of oral contraceptives, in part because it causes the stomach to empty much more slowly. This has been shown to reduce the concentration of contraceptives in the bloodstream by up to 20 percent. Therefore, both drug manufacturers and doctors advise anyone using oral contraceptives to add condoms as a backup method for at least four weeks after starting tirzepatide injections or after any dose increases (beyond this one-month window the risk decreases). Another option is to switch to a non-oral birth control method such as an IUD, implant or ring, which are not affected by tirzepatide.
As for other popular GLP-1s, such as semaglutide (including the brand-name drugs Ozempic and Wegovy) and liraglutide (Saxenda), they affect stomach enzymes somewhat differently than tirzepatide. Based on clinical trials to dateThere is no evidence that semaglutide reduces the effectiveness of oral contraceptives, and some health organizations such as Planned Parenthood claim that they can be used safely with the tablet. However, doctors report real cases of breakthrough bleeding and unwanted pregnancies associated with All GLP-1 injections for weight loss and women prefer to play it safe and use backup condoms or non-oral contraceptives.
