Can I Use Ozempic While Breastfeeding?

What’s the latest data on Ozempic (or other GLP-1 injectables) and breastfeeding?
—Dying to know!

Everyone is dying to know! These medications have become ubiquitous. From their origins in treating diabetes to the current formulations designed for weight loss, the use of these drugs has skyrocketed over time and only continues to grow. I’ve written about the data behind Ozempic and Wegovy before, and I’m sure I will do so again.

Our evidence on use during pregnancy and breastfeeding has lagged considerably. This 2023 review pulls together all of what we know about this, and it’s paltry. There are some concerns about use during pregnancy based on animal studies, and a possibility of a slightly increased risk of miscarriage in human studies, but the human study data is very limited.

For breastfeeding: this medication is excreted in breast milk based on animal models, but there is no data on humans. So … we really do not know. There is nothing in animal studies that would suggest enormous risks — usually if there is something very bad, we do see it in mice and rats. But that’s very different from saying we can rule out small risks.

Part of what makes this complicated, of course, is that when you aren’t sure about safety and we’re talking about a medication that can be paused, there is little incentive to learn about it. In pregnancy, we sometimes learn information from accidental exposure, but that’s a lot less likely in breastfeeding.

In conclusion: we do not know and I’m not optimistic we will soon (sorry).