‘The idea of not being skinny at my wedding makes me want to die’: New mothers pushed into weight-loss shots | Pregnancy
toydia* first started thinking about weight loss medications during pregnancy. “Everyone was talking about it and the ads were everywhere,” she says as her infant son naps upstairs. “I remember thinking: ‘This is how I’m going to lose weight for my wedding next year.'”
When Lydia explains that most of her pre-pregnancy life was spent in a state of chaos between yo-yo dieting and body dissatisfaction, I tell her that I think most of us can relate to that. However, her pregnancy has brought a level of body acceptance and contentment that the 33-year-old Welsh woman has never enjoyed before.
But as her due date approached, a familiar feeling of fear emerged. In her antenatal class WhatsApp group — previously a space where they shared photos of their growing bumps and tips on how to start labor — babies began arriving and so did conversations about nutrition. Suddenly, Chat entered weight loss diet. Of the group of six mothers, three decided not to breastfeed or gave in early to either crash diets or weight-loss shots – both of which are advised against breastfeeding because of their impact on milk quality and supply. However, Lydia was committed to breastfeeding, so she tried not to let it bother her – and was relieved when they were able to do so, even though her son was in such a bad condition when he was born that he ended up in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Trauma has a habit of focusing the mind, and in the early days of her son’s life, Lydia’s worries about her weight fell by the wayside as she devoted herself to caring for him. “He almost died,” she says. “I didn’t care about anything else but him.” However, after a few months, she started to notice that her weight was starting to go up, instead of going down, as everyone — including her mother — had assured her would happen while breastfeeding.
Today, seven months after giving birth, everywhere she looks, she sees weight-loss vaccines: on her Instagram account, many of her followers are either using them or talking about them – and many of the targeted ads come from a private provider. It seems like the world is ready for her to stop being overweight. Like so many women before her, she is listening. “As much as I can appreciate my body for bringing this beautiful soul into the world and I can totally justify it, the thought of not being ‘skinny’ at my wedding makes me want to die inside,” she says.
I’m also a mother of young children, and like many others, I’ve struggled with my weight my whole life. I grew up in the late 1990s, under the toxic lens of obsessive scrutiny of women’s bodies. I still remember that broadcaster Chris Evans asked Victoria Beckham to weigh herself live on television six months after giving birth to her first son, Brooklyn, to prove that she had lost weight since giving birth. And while the body positivity years have made great strides in helping us all embrace difference and diversity, the rapid, multi-billion-pound growth in the GLP-1 agonist market, which has seen an estimated 1.5 million people in the UK start using the drugs, appears to be pushing back acceptance.
I had my first child in 2022, and my second in 2024 – and the pressure to “return” after my second child was intense; The whole scene looked different. Losing weight is now no longer just an aspiration, but rather possible. Just one simple, albeit expensive, injection. A 2019 study The Mental Health Foundation has estimated that as many as four in 10 women experience body dissatisfaction after giving birth – no wonder private weight loss companies target women who have recently given birth. Just look at Serena Williams’ recent endorsement of injections as part of a plan Advertising campaign “After having kids, it’s the medicine my body needs,” says Rowe, a private provider.
I jumped on the bandwagon six months after giving birth. After searching for drugs and reading Government and NHS guidance About taking GLP-1 agonists You have learned that these medications should not be taken during pregnancy, while trying to conceive, or while breastfeeding. Second to the numerous bouts of mastitis I had experienced in the previous few months, the desire to lose weight quickly was a big factor in my decision to give up breastfeeding at month six.
Dr. Jean Toledano, a leading specialist in female hormones and founder London Hormone ClinicShe says she sees this a lot in her clinic. “It’s a period of hormonal turmoil. Your body is changing, you’re all over the place…and you have the responsibility of taking care of these newborns and young children. You have all kinds of identity and body issues, and the pressure to get back to the way you were before is enormous.” She says it’s concerning, but not surprising, that someone would be so eager to lose weight in this environment that they would be willing to stop breastfeeding.
Melanie* is a 31-year-old mother of two young children who lives in South Wales. Her youngest daughter is 18 months old and breastfeeds several times a day. Fed up with her post-baby size and keen to lose weight, Melanie has been injecting Mongaro (a popular GLP-1 agonist) since January and has lost five stone. For her, losing weight was “life-changing”, although going against NHS guidance was not a decision she took lightly. “I did a lot of research, read as much scientific papers as I could understand, and talked to my husband about it,” she says. The private provider from whom she purchased Mongaro asked whether she was breastfeeding. You have checked the box to say no and the information you provided has not been verified.
She says she felt more comfortable bucking strict guidelines because she is taking another medication that she says is given in the same way that is considered safe for breastfeeding. I’ve also read other women’s experiences on Reddit. “Obviously they couldn’t do large-scale studies on the safety of medications during breastfeeding because that’s not ethical, but we decided to go ahead,” she explains.
Breastfeeding Network Drugs in breast milk The service provides information on the safety of medications, treatments and procedures when breastfeeding. Amanda Da Costa, a clinical supervisor at the service, says the number of inquiries from breastfeeding mothers about weight loss rose by 145% from summer 2024 to summer 2025. “Questions about vaccines are the biggest reason for those inquiries related to weight loss,” she says. “GLP-1 medications like Mounjaro, Ozempic, or Wegovy are not recommended for use while breastfeeding,” she adds. “More research and data are needed on whether these drugs pass into breast milk or whether they have any effect on infants.”
Toledano was more vocal in her concerns about using these medications while breastfeeding. “There is very little human data on whether it is absorbed into breast milk and transmitted to the baby, but there are animal studies,” she says. “It’s not as widespread, but there are some that show that there may be a potential impact on the baby’s development — so it’s very risky and very important to avoid GLP-1 while breastfeeding.” She also points out that the impact on the child may not be visible at first, but there is the potential for long-term consequences. “Other areas of interest to the child include the development of normal appetite regulation and gut hormone pathways.”
The fact that new parents like Melanie can easily access these medications online is concerning. Da Costa says the network expects all prescribers to ask patients if they are breastfeeding before prescribing the drug, but they are quick to say they know this doesn’t always happen, or a person may choose not to disclose this information or forget to disclose it. For Toledano, this lack of oversight is the most troubling aspect of the boom in GLP-1 use via private vendors. “They often advertise that there is nutritional support, but there isn’t,” she says. “Because it’s online and no one can monitor you, how do you assess how healthy the patient is?”
Toledano says there are other potential health risks from taking weight-loss medications during the postpartum period — which she identifies as at least in the first year of a baby’s life. “If there is rapid weight loss, it affects a lot of different things: milk production may stop, yes, but energy levels may also decrease, which, in my opinion, may lead to postpartum depression.” She also points out that rapid loss of body mass can lead to cessation of menstruation, which may mask the return to fertility that menstruation often signals. For this reason, she advises anyone taking it to be very careful about contraception if they don’t intend to become pregnant.
There are of course some cases in which mothers need medical help in the postpartum period, specifically if they have had gestational diabetes or are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes or other metabolic diseases. In these cases, Toledano recommends working with a specialist who can oversee their care while they take the medications, but she worries that mass marketing of medications directly to consumers interferes with that process. “If a woman is looking for GLP-1 agonists because they’re advertised all the time and everyone’s using them, she’s not going to see a doctor who understands metabolic changes after pregnancy,” which she believes puts her at risk for unwanted side effects or other health complications.
I regret my decision to stop breastfeeding in order to take GLP-1 agonists – not least because the side effects were intolerable for me, and I couldn’t take them for longer than two weeks. Giving up your milk supply is not a decision you can easily reverse. Hindsight is a beautiful thing, of course, but looking back now, I can see how exposed and insecure I was in those early postpartum days, and thus willing to fall for the promise of easy weight loss. I probably had a target painted on my back. And what I feel now is concern about the lack of ongoing care and support for postpartum women who are being pushed – rightly or wrongly – onto these medications during a very sensitive period. I hope someone protects me from them.
Since our interview, Melanie told me that she has now stopped taking Mongaro. She says she’s concerned about how easily postpartum women like herself will be drawn into vaccine marketing, omit information or lie to get it — as she did. “You’re pretty vulnerable; your hormones are all over the place, lack of sleep and all of that,” she says. “There needs to be stricter warnings and advertising so they don’t target the wrong people.”
For now, Lydia has decided not to take medications. “Eventually, my child comes before this constant need to be thin,” she says, though she’s clear that if she’s been advised it’s safe to do so, and she’s confident her son won’t come to harm, she’ll likely take it once he turns one. She also resents having, as is often the case, to choose between two things that society places enormous pressure on mothers to achieve: recovery and breastfeeding. “I hate that I can’t do both,” she says. I tell her I feel the same way.
*Names have been changed