I had an Ozempic baby! An infertile woman became pregnant two WEEKS after taking a similar weight loss drug and now has a healthy baby girl

A Florida woman with fertility problems has given birth after becoming pregnant within two weeks of taking the successful weight-loss drugs.

Marcela Romero had been struggling to get pregnant for three years when she considered starting in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Before starting her IVF journey, she wanted to give herself the best possible chance at life, so she started taking Mounjaro – made by Eli Lilly – to lose weight and keep her blood sugar levels down.

Just two weeks after starting the medication, she discovered she was pregnant. She is now the mother of a seven-month-old son.

“She is very happy and has a smile all the time,” Ms. Romero said Good morning America.

Ms. Romero is one of a growing number of women in the US who have become pregnant while taking weight-loss medications such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro.

Experts have said this could be due to the drugs, which mimic satiety hormones in the brain and correct hormonal imbalances caused by obesity and metabolic disorders.

This, in turn, could improve fertility chances.

Blockbuster drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy use the active ingredient semaglutide to suppress appetite and induce weight loss.

The drugs work on the GLP-1 receptor, a protein that activates hormones in the brain that keep the stomach full and tell the body to stop eating and avoid cravings.

Mounjaro, approved for type 2 diabetes, uses the active ingredient tirzepatide, which targets GLP-1 and the hormone glucose-dependent insulintropic polypeptide (GIP).

More and more women are reporting that they are becoming pregnant with these medications.

A Facebook group called “I Got Pregnant on Ozempic” has more than 450 members, while people on Reddit threads and TikTokers share notes about how they unexpectedly got pregnant while taking Ozempic.

‘I got pregnant from Ozempic and was on the pill! Baby boy due in June,” someone commented on a TikTok video.

‘My surprise Ozempic baby is almost 4 months old and thankfully very healthy!’ said someone else.

Deb Oliviara, 32, started her Ozempic regimen the day after Thanksgiving to shift the extra weight that was making her feel blue.

She was taking a birth control pill, but not consistently, but was not concerned because she had a history of fertility problems.

Two months after starting Ozempic, and the same week she reached her goal weight, Ms. Oliviara discovered she was pregnant.

“We were open to the idea, but certainly not trying,” she said USA today.

‘It was a big surprise and the only pregnancy, apart from my first, that didn’t come after a loss.’

It is Ms Oliviara’s sixth pregnancy with just two living children, after she lost a baby in the first trimester, another in the second trimester and suffered a stillbirth.

She is currently ten weeks pregnant and both mother and baby are healthy.

Anna Parker, 38, from Georgia, has struggled for four years to have a second child and is currently undergoing IVF, in which an egg is removed from a woman’s ovaries and fertilized with sperm in a laboratory.

Before starting fertility treatments, she started Mounjaro in January to lose weight.

“I spoke to my gynecologist and she agreed that I could take it and hopefully lose weight quickly,” she told Good Morning America.

“So far I’ve lost about 12 pounds, and I’m really looking forward to hopefully making a smooth transition to implanting the baby.”

Some research suggests that medications like Mounjaro may regulate hormones in the body related to fertility, such as estrogen.

For example, the drug is prescribed for polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), a hormonal disorder that affects one in 10 American women of childbearing age, according to the U.S. Office on Women’s Health.

It causes the ovaries to produce excessive amounts of the male sex hormone androgen due to cysts that form along the outer edges of the organ.

This leads to irregular menstrual cycles, abnormal hair growth, acne, obesity and thinning hair.

It has also been linked to infertility, as polycystic ovaries have a large number of harmless follicles up to 0.3 inches in size.

They are underdeveloped sacs in which eggs grow, but the sacs cannot release the egg, meaning ovulation does not occur.

Dr. Utsavi Shah, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology who specializes in obesity medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said USA today there is nothing special about the drugs that makes people more fertile, other than the way they handle birth control pills.

She said: ‘It is their effect on weight loss that helps regulate their menstrual cycle, increasing their chances of becoming pregnant.’

Fat cells release estrogen, meaning the more fat a person gains, the more estrogen they will have.

Extra estrogen can prevent regular menstruation and ovulation, making it more difficult to become pregnant.

Studies conducted in test tubes have shown that tirzepatide, the active ingredient of Mounjaro and Zepbound, reduces the effectiveness of oral contraceptives such as birth control pills, according to the medications’ labels.

Mounjaro and Zepbound make it take longer for the stomach to empty, which can affect how oral medications are absorbed into the body.

Semaglutide does not have much of an effect on gastric emptying and therefore contains no warnings about oral contraceptives.

Reproductive and obesity medicine experts said they are seeing a trend of women becoming pregnant after taking drugs like Mounjaro and Ozempic, but warned that women should not take weight-loss drugs to try to conceive.

For example, research in rats, rabbits and monkeys shows that the weight-loss drugs can lead to miscarriage and birth defects if taken during pregnancy. No studies have been done in humans.

Women should stop taking the weight loss drugs at least two months before a planned pregnancy, advises Ozempic’s drugmaker Novo Nordisk.

Dr. Allison Rodgers, an OB-GYN and reproductive endocrinologist at Fertility Centers of Illinois, told USA today: ‘It is true that, from a scientific perspective, these drugs can make it easier for people to become pregnant.

‘But people should be careful as there can be dangerous consequences if taken during pregnancy as the drugs can linger in your system.’

Although Ms. Romero’s daughter was born healthy, she said The New York Times that she feared that Mounjaro could cause side effects.

‘My first thought was, this is great and all, but do we know if there are any complications with the pregnancy? Are there defects that children are born with?’ she said.

“Of course there’s no information because it’s so new.”