It was desperation to lose the stubborn three stone in baby weight I’d put on after two children that first led me to Mounjaro.
In the three years since giving birth to my second child, I had experimented with various methods to lose weight — hitting the gym, tracking calories, and eliminating sugar — with no success.
At the age of 36, I found myself a size 16 and weighing 13st 3lbs. Not classified as obese, I came across the infamous ‘King Kong’ of weight-loss medications. Encouraged by the buzz surrounding it, I was willing to try it out for a quick solution.
It’s a decision I now deeply regret.
As someone who tries to avoid taking medication of any kind, even painkillers, I’d done a lot of online research before taking the plunge.
The drug was known to cause common side effects like constipation and nausea, and there were also concerns about possible associations with thyroid cancer and pancreatic issues. However, after speaking to friends who were already using the injections and conducting my own research, it appeared that severe side effects were uncommon.
Besides, I only planned to be on Mounjaro for one or two months – just enough to kickstart my weight loss – so I put these worries to the back of my mind. What happened next, however, will haunt me for life. After five weeks on Mounjaro, I discovered I was pregnant – despite taking my usual precautions and having only planned to have two children. I didn’t want to endure an abortion, however, so we embraced the pregnancy and started planning for our new addition.
But eight weeks in, I suffered agonising pain and, after a series of scans and tests, doctors revealed the horrifying news: I probably wouldn’t carry the baby to term and, if I did, there was a strong possibility that he or she would be born with severe birth defects.
After five weeks on Mounjaro, I discovered I was pregnant – despite taking my usual precautions and having only planned to have two children. I didn’t want to endure an abortion, however, so we embraced the pregnancy and started planning for our new addition
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) issued an urgent warning that weight-loss jabs could not only make contraception less effective but prove harmful to unborn babies
After much agonising, I felt I had no choice but to have a termination; a traumatic conclusion that, nearly nine months on, leaves me riddled with guilt and anger.
Guilt that I killed a potential life – and blind fury about the subsequent revelation that Mounjaro might have been to blame.
This month, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) issued an urgent warning that weight-loss jabs could not only make contraception less effective but prove harmful to unborn babies.
Women of childbearing age using any slimming injection including Ozempic and Wegovy were urged to use birth control, due to potential risks to both the pregnant woman and the foetus. While those using Mounjaro were told to ‘double-up’ their methods of contraception if using the Pill.
I wasn’t on the Pill, though – my husband Jonathan and I were using a fertility app that had worked faultlessly for almost 20 years.
Had the drug heightened my fertility? And, more importantly, had it caused the ‘unviable pregnancy’, as the doctors had called it, which led to my abortion?
If I’d known about these risks, I would have avoided the drug altogether. I find it so painful that all this heartbreak could have been avoided had it been more thoroughly researched.
Before having a family, I’d never struggled with my weight and was always fairly confident about my body. It was only after having my daughter, now three, that I struggled to shift the pounds and felt down about it.
I tried upping my exercise and eating healthily but it didn’t seem to have any effect. Having heard so much about these so-called ‘wonder drugs’ from the media and friends who were on them, I decided to give it a go myself.
Had the drug heightened my fertility? And, more importantly, had it caused the ‘unviable pregnancy’, as the doctors had called it, which led to my abortion?
After my first jab my appetite was suppressed immediately but I was disappointed to find I’d only lost 4lbs in four weeks
As I wasn’t obese or diabetic – the drugs were originally invented to combat diabetes – I didn’t think there was any point in contacting my GP. Instead, I ordered a low dose of 2.5mg of Mounjaro from an online pharmacy at a cost of £185 a month.
I took my first jab last October at 8pm and my appetite was suppressed immediately. The next day I ate less and was simply not as interested in food.
This continued so I was disappointed to find I’d only lost 4lbs in four weeks. And having done a body metrics scan at my local gym, I discovered that 2lbs of that was muscle instead of fat.
Still, I continued, telling myself I was lucky not to be suffering any side-effects at all. Around the same time, though, I noticed my period was late. I’m normally like clockwork every 28 days, so I did wonder if the jabs might have interrupted my cycle.
I haven’t used the Pill or an implant since I was 18 as the hormones did not agree with me. Instead, for the last 20 years, I’ve relied on a fertility app and thermometer to measure my fertile week – this had helped me conceive easily when I wanted to and avoid pregnancy the rest of the time. I dismissed the possibility of pregnancy for this reason.
But by week five, my breasts started hurting – a first sign of pregnancy previously – so I took a test. There was no doubt in the result: positive. My reaction was one of blind panic and confusion. Jonathan was equally baffled. We had been so careful.
Looking back at my fertility app, it showed that I was most likely two to three weeks pregnant.
I stopped taking the jab immediately. But now what?
I love my children more than anything but we’d decided to stop at two. Jonathan had been considering a vasectomy and I wanted to put my baby days behind me – reclaim my body and my career as a graphic designer.
That said, I didn’t want to put myself through the emotional fallout of a termination.
Instead, we started to prepare for our new addition to the family. Jonathan took to Rightmove to find out where we could afford a four-bed house.
But around week eight, I experienced breathtakingly sharp pains in my abdomen. Suspecting an ectopic pregnancy, I went to A&E. They did an internal scan and a blood test to check my hormone levels. Because the pregnancy was so early, they couldn’t quite detect where the foetus was so they decided to test my pregnancy hormones every 48 hours.
I was told that in a normal pregnancy the human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) hormone is supposed to double every 48 hours.
In my first blood test, it came back as having increased by only 60 per cent, in my second 40 per cent, in my third 10 per cent. Something was very wrong.
Panicked, I turned to the internet again and that’s when I found a study that showed mice and rats on Mounjaro, Wegovy and Ozempic had suffered birth defects. At this point the link had not been made to humans.
I felt sick. Why had I not been warned about this being even a remote possibility? The only warning on the packet was to say that if you are trying for a baby, you should not take the jab for two months before, but I’d assumed that was irrelevant as we weren’t trying for a baby.
Another scan showed that the pregnancy wasn’t ectopic but clearly something wasn’t right. It was at that point that I admitted I had been on Mounjaro and while the doctors couldn’t – or wouldn’t – say either way whether this had caused it, they did say I needed to think very carefully about what I was going to do next.
The doctor told me she would be very surprised if I didn’t miscarry naturally in the next two weeks. This was devastating; I’d never had a miscarriage before. But, worse still, if I did carry to anywhere near term, there was a chance the baby could be severely deformed.
I felt so torn. We had already experienced life in the neo-natal unit when our son, now six, was born three months premature and had to spend six months in hospital and two years on oxygen. While he has no severe problems now, it was incredibly stressful. Did I want to put us through that again as older parents who already had two young children?
What if I did continue with the pregnancy and suffered the agonies of a late miscarriage? Or gave birth to a baby who had no future at all. Or… there was a small chance that everything would be fine and I’d give birth to a healthy child. At this point, I was still telling myself abortion wasn’t an option for me. This was my child after all. Though I was so afraid that, at times, I wished nature would decide for me.
My husband was completely on the same page as me. He said it was my body and that I had to do what was right for me as I’d be the one going through the physical and emotional trauma. I’d told him about the possible link with Mounjaro and, like me, he was shocked. But there was no element of blame. We were both thinking: ‘How were we supposed to know?’
By week ten, though, things looked far bleaker. The declining levels of pregnancy hormone and the increasing risk of giving birth to a baby that stood no chance of a real future forced us to make an agonising decision. I would go ahead with a chemically induced miscarriage. Devastated, I took two tablets at home and the process was over in around 48 hours. It was awful – I spent two days in bed; a mixture of tears, anger and terror. I had to endure it alone so my husband could keep the children away; they were told Mummy was ill. But Jonathan came up regularly to supply me with whatever I needed. I just wanted the horror to be over.
Afterwards, I went away on my own to Cornwall for a couple of days to process what had happened. When my husband joined me with our children, I felt so much guilt – what if I’d done this to them?
Back home, I felt too ashamed to admit the truth to my friends. I told those who’d known about my pregnancy that I’d miscarried. I did make them aware that Mounjaro could have caused the pregnancy to be unviable. It felt important to me to let other women know. I couldn’t stop thinking about the little life I’d had to end. In an attempt to keep busy, I threw myself into setting up my own business as a graphic designer.
But deep down I was still so angry. All pharmacies vet weightloss jab patients and mine had done so over Zoom; there had been ample opportunity to warn me of any potential risks of birth defects or at least increased fertility.
The studies I’ve come across claim this is a rare side-effect. But when you look on Mounjaro forums, there are enough anecdotes of women on the jab having similar experiences to raise alarm. Some babies are born healthy, of course – they even call them ‘Ozempic babies’ – but there are also miscarriages and birth defects.
Let’s face it, there’s still so much we don’t know about the long or short-term consequences of these so-called miracle jabs.
A few of my fellow school mums are on them and at least one of them has had a miscarriage. She had no idea about the possible link until I opened up to her about my own experience. She was horrified.
I understand that weight-loss jabs can be life-savers for the morbidly obese who have struggled to shed the pounds any other way. But the truth is far too many of us are using them as a quick fix to shed two or three stone, without knowing the full spectrum of possible side-effects.
At a time when MPs are planning to roll out the jabs to even more people, in the battle against obesity, we need to wise up – and fast.
As for me, I will forever hold onto the guilt and regret of the abortion.
I don’t want anyone other women to face the same fate.
As told to Jill Foster. Additional reporting: Matthew Barbour. Hannah Smyth is a pseudonym. Names and identifying details have been changed.
