A PopSugar feature reports that new mothers are now navigating the postpartum period inside a constant stream of GLP-1 advertising, and that prescriptions after delivery have risen steeply. The drugs named are semaglutide (sold as Ozempic and Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Zepbound), originally developed for type 2 diabetes and now household names for weight loss.

The jump, with its denominator

A study published in JAMA in October found that 1.9 percent of commercially insured women filled a new GLP-1 prescription within six months of giving birth in early 2025, up from 0.08 percent in early 2018. That is roughly 2 in 100 new mothers, which is not everyone in the group chat but is a large move in seven years.

What a prescription does not tell you

Study author Sih-Ting Cai, PhD, of USC's Schaeffer Center, says a prescription alone cannot distinguish a woman managing a health condition from one feeling pressure to lose weight. The women most likely to start after delivery had type 2 diabetes, and the study never asked anyone why they wanted treatment.

The counting method matters more than most coverage of this number has acknowledged. A fill counted as new if there was no GLP-1 claim in the 180 days before delivery, so a woman restarting a medication she paused for pregnancy lands in the same bucket as a first-timer. Women on Medicaid and fully out-of-pocket prescriptions were excluded entirely.

Where the clinicians push back

Pooja Gidwani, MD, told PopSugar that being above pre-pregnancy weight does not on its own establish a need for medication, and that anemia, thyroid problems, depression and persistent blood sugar issues all deserve a look first. Obesity medicine physician Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, put the advertising problem bluntly: her concern is any marketing that turns a vulnerable postpartum period into a cosmetic emergency.

The breastfeeding gap

One small study of injectable semaglutide found no detectable drug in the breast-milk samples tested. Stanford notes it did not address milk production, milk composition or longer-term outcomes for infants, which is most of what a nursing parent would actually want to know.

Bottom line

The prescribing trend is real and measured. The motivation behind it, and the effect of the ad saturation on postpartum body image, remain unstudied, and Christine C. Call, PhD, says that research has not caught up yet.