Exactly how many new mums are on GLP-1s?

In today's episode: our hosts explore how many women are taking GLP-1 medications or diet pills in the first two years postpartum. Big thanks to Clearblue, here to help you better understand your cycle and identify your most fertile days with their Advanced Digital Ovulation Test. You can learn more about ovulation tests, or shop Clearblue now. Thank you also to Onepass, a membership program for Australia's favourite retailers that is all about saving you a bit of time and money. The Room is produced by Dimity Kirkwood, video produced by Scott Walton, edited by Eilish Gilligan and executive-produced by Lucy Hunt. Our social media team consists of Naima Fatema, and our partnerships managers are Tabitha Rachmat and Tahnee Malina. We're a new show, and the best way to support us is by clicking ‘follow’ on Apple and Spotify, and we're super grateful to anyone who leaves a five-star review while they're at it. Also! An old-fashioned 'Tell a Friend In Real Life' is equally appreciated. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok. Note: The views and opinions expressed in this episode are those of the hosts, and are not medical endorsements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:10Georgia Allison?

  Welcome to The Room, where mothers meet to share their inner world. We're your hosts, I'm Georgia Allison.

• 0:15Freya Bleathman?

  I'm Freya Bleathman.

• 0:16Rafa Husain?

  I'm Rafa Husain. What a week!

• 0:19Georgia Allison?

  Launch week!

• 0:19Rafa Husain?

  Huge week!

• 0:21Georgia Allison?

  What a week. It's been so much fun, guys. Thank you for everyone who has commented on our Instagram pages. And just been so beautiful in their feedback for the first two episodes, as well as our interview. Today, we are getting into a very meaty topic. The topic of today's episode is postpartum bodies, and exactly how many women are on GLP-1s.

• 0:45Rafa Husain?

  Big ones.

• 0:46Freya Bleathman?

  I'm so excited we're talking about this, because I feel like my thoughts and feelings and what I'm talking about with my girlfriends about them hasn't really been represented in any of the media that I've been consuming. So I'm excited, because I think we'll potentially all have slightly different takes as well. Anyway, how were your weeks before we get into it?

• 1:10Georgia Allison?

  It's been a huge whirlwind of a week. I can't believe that the launch of The Room podcast has just been so incredible. The support and the reach out from so many different people, from previous work colleagues, old friends, school friends, and people who have commented on The Room's podcast section on Spotify. It's just insane.

• 1:34Freya Bleathman?

  Everyone has been so nice. It's actually made me think I need to remember to do that kind of stuff, like give the positive feedback. Yeah, so, I mean, basically, our one rule for this launch week was, "Don't look at the reviews." And like, literally, day one, I'm like, la, la, la, like, reading all the reviews. And then I was liking all of them. And then dim our producer, like, screenshotting, she's like, "Freya, get out of the reviews."

• 2:00Freya Bleathman?

  They're all nice.

• 2:01Rafa Husain?

  I have to say, you're on maternity leave, so it's not like you've got... You're obviously looking after Goldie, like, I appreciate that. But there are gaps in your day where you can do a bit more scrolling, where George and I are sort of really full-time at it at work. So I thankfully have, like, the episode dropped when I was in the office. And aside from all of my colleagues running up and being like, "Oh, my God, I listened to you on the way to work," which was so nice. I had really intense meetings that day, so I couldn't really draw myself back out, which I actually was like, "Thank God." Like, I had a bit of a counterbalance, so if I wasn't, though, I reckon I would be in the reviews.

• 2:39Freya Bleathman?

  My loss of the week last week was, my screen time was really high, and it was a lot worse.

• 2:43Rafa Husain?

  Let's not look at it.

• 2:45Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah.

• 2:45Rafa Husain?

  Let's give ourselves...

• 2:47Georgia Allison?

  Give us some grace, period. This week has been so much fun.

• 2:50Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah, I mean, I'm almost tempted to ask the listeners if they see me, like, in the comments, "I'm liking your comments between, like, nine and five." Well, then I was gonna say, "But during naps, I'm allowed," and her naps aren't consistent. So, like, I was gonna say, "Message me and tell me to get off," but maybe that's not a very good plan.

• 3:07Rafa Husain?

  No, but it's been an incredible week. Like, out of body experience, I think, like, just kind of seeing the, I don't know, fruits of our labour. We've been working at this over the last few months, just scrolling away behind the scenes. And so to see it go out and then get all this amazing sort of feedback from friends and family has been so nice. I, oh, far out, I think I'm gonna be the crier in this show.

• 3:32Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah.

• 3:32Rafa Husain?

  Oh, it's not gonna be me.

• 3:35Freya Bleathman?

  Emotionally repressed.

• 3:36Rafa Husain?

  I should probably, episode zero, talk about losing dad. And it's really hard to go through some big, like, life moments without their presence around. And that really hit me. I think that was like the sad grief part of an amazing experience. And my mum wrote a lovely message to me that I thought might be worth, like, sharing, just because I think it puts a lot of context to myself as a personality, as people get to know me. But she said, "Loving daughters, I'm so blessed with you all today, missing your Abu so much. He would have been so proud of both of you." The name he gave Rafa, hilariously, I was meant to be called Chanel.

• 4:22Freya Bleathman?

  I say hilarious because I'm not a Chanel.

• 4:24Georgia Allison?

  No, you're Rafa. Yeah, that was a good call by him.

• 4:28Rafa Husain?

  Dad really liked the name Rafa, and it names abundance. The name means abundance and prosperity in Arabic. "He's watching over both of you as the angel and spirit guide. Alhamdulillah, only gratitude. I'm so proud of you, and he would be so proud of you too." And that just brings it home, right? Like, you go through these big moments. It felt similar on my wedding day and wedding week. And yeah, that's probably just like the nod of unexpected emotion, because anyone that has lost anyone that's really instrumental to your life and who you are as a person, when you go through these big life moments, you really just want them to be around and to see it.

• 5:10Rafa Husain?

  And grief just hits you and continues hitting you in unexpected ways. Overall, I feel so proud to be his daughter. But yeah, missed him, because I definitely felt like he would be so proud, because so much of my childhood, he grew up being like, "Oh, I think Rafa's just, love is being the centre of attention." And she just talks so much. And my primary school reports and parent-teacher interviews is like, "Rafa's really studious, but really disrupts other people with how much she loves talking."

• 5:39Georgia Allison?

  I feel like we all got that report, don't we?

• 5:41Rafa Husain?

  And it makes sense, because we're here. So what a privilege to be on this show and to host it, and have that all come together as well.

• 5:47Freya Bleathman?

  He would be so proud of you. I mean, I'm so proud of you.

• 5:50Rafa Husain?

  Thank you.

• 5:51Freya Bleathman?

  For today's topic, it's pretty meaty. Shall we quickly hear from the sponsor and then get into it?

• 5:56Rafa Husain?

  Yeah, absolutely. This episode of The Room is brought to you by Clearblue, here to help you better understand your cycle and identify your most fertile days with their advanced digital ovulation test.

• 6:08Freya Bleathman?

  Amazing. Well, I don't know about you guys, but I find it pretty hard to scroll through social media and have conversations online and with my friends without, in some form, the topic of GLP-1s coming up at the moment. I mean, just in the past couple of weeks, we've had three articles. We've had "Azempic helps you lose weight, it might be ruining your face," from the Financial Review.

• 6:30Georgia Allison?

  Of all places? I'm surprised by that.

• 6:34Freya Bleathman?

  We've had "How McDonald's is grappling with the Ozempic boom in the age," which, you know, why doesn't anyone think of McDonald's? "Doctors condemn Eli Lilly," which is a pharmaceutical company. So, "Doctors condemn Eli Lilly's move to dispense GLP-1 medication, monjaro, direct to door." That's from the ABC.

• 6:53Georgia Allison?

  And these have all come out in the last, like, two to three weeks. And I mean, we've been having these conversations off-air for now a couple of months. And I, like, it's just...

• 7:02Rafa Husain?

  It's everywhere, isn't it?

• 7:03Georgia Allison?

  It's everywhere. It's everywhere. But I'm not, and just to your point, Freya, I'm not hearing, having these conversations in this sort of format, and especially related, which we're gonna touch on today, to postpartum bodies.

• 7:17Freya Bleathman?

  Postpartum bodies, and I think actually also hearing from women, BMI in the normal range, say.

• 7:23Rafa Husain?

  Yeah, different parts of the postpartum journey. I'm excited, because you're a little bit further along in your postpartum journey, Georgia, to where Freya and I are. It's just such an interesting topic. I laughed, though, looking at the, "Azempic helps you lose weight, it might be ruining your face, and after a certain age, you have to choose between your face and your ass," is a line from the article. And I was just like, isn't that just so representative of where women's lives are at? Sometimes it's like, pick one thing, but it's gonna come at the cost of another thing. And having to make those choices. And I'm like, gosh, I wonder we're all stressed out. You can't win.

• 7:58Georgia Allison?

  No, you can't. You can't. And I think we all are familiar with the Ozempic face. Like, had you heard of that before?

• 8:05Rafa Husain?

  Yeah.

• 8:06Georgia Allison?

  I feel like that's a conversation that I'm having with my girlfriends, outside of, you know, it being GLP-1s being related to postpartum bodies. But like you said, you can't open social media apps or watch Hollywood at the moment, red carpets, without seeing it slumped in your face of how it's got this sort of skinny epidemic, and then it's having a sort of a drawing line to whether or not Ozempic or GLP-1s and other sort of formats, monjaro, whatever their names are, are playing a massive part in that.

• 8:40Rafa Husain?

  Yeah. I mean, it's hard to escape it. Like, I think if I open my browser, there's like, over the last six months, at least one article around a GLP-1-related topic. And perhaps even more so now, it's moved on a little bit from GLP-1s. And peptides are another injectable that all of my friends are talking about. And, you know, the black market increase of people prescribing themselves. And that's something that I really wanna get into, because at the end of the day... GLP-1s are medical injections.

• 9:19Georgia Allison?

  Hmm.

• 9:19Rafa Husain?

  It's in discourse. They play a very important role in society for medical

• 9:23Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 9:24Rafa Husain?

  reasons.

• 9:24Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 9:25Rafa Husain?

  And then there's a weight loss side effect, I guess, of how you can

• 9:29Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 9:29Rafa Husain?

  impact your cardiovascular health and your diabetic health through weight loss and things like that. So that's a part that I'm grappling with. It's kind of taken over conversation culturally as a weight loss drug. And I'm like, no, that's not, that's not its primary reason for existing.

• 9:43Freya Bleathman?

  Hmm. I mean, I totally agree. I have some pretty strong thoughts, actually, on that side of things. But I wonder, maybe before we deep dive into the GLP-1s or the GLP-1 side of things, how have you felt historically about your bodies, maybe in the lead up to postpartum? And then we can talk about whether that's changed postpartum.

• 10:04Georgia Allison?

  Body positivity was rife in my home with my parents. Um, they lead a pretty healthy lifestyle. With all that in mind, I still fell victim to the skinny meaty era, the thigh gap era. Um, I'm not immune to, you know, I went to a girls' school. Like, eating disorders were certainly around me. I feel very lucky that I do have a pretty good and a positive outlook on what my body can do. But that's really related to how it can perform, whether it's in the netball court, where it's running. Being strong is really important to me. And that's definitely gone into now my motherhood, um, journey.

• 10:44Georgia Allison?

  Pregnancy, I loved. I loved being pregnant. I wore that bump and I showed early, of course, guys. Um, I wore that bump proud. I really remember, I was pregnant in 2022. There was a certain, um, cotton on dress that I literally wore as like was my pregnancy uniform because it sort of showed off my bump the best. And I think so many of us could probably identify of when you do show, um, you sort of, you feel sort of really empowered in your body around like what it can do.

• 11:14Freya Bleathman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:14Georgia Allison?

  I certainly felt like that. And once people knew that I was carrying three babies, you get some interesting commentary about the way you look.

• 11:22Rafa Husain?

  Can only imagine.

• 11:23Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:24Rafa Husain?

  As in, the bump doesn't look big enough and things like.

• 11:26Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, like, what, there's three in there? And I'm like, yes, I hope so. Like, I'm bloody starving. I'm eating for three, that's for sure.

• 11:34Freya Bleathman?

  I think, I mean, I don't know, I got those comments with a single pregnancy as well, like, oh, wow, you're really showing. Or you're not showing very much. Are you sure it's not twins? And all of those comments.

• 11:43Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 11:44Freya Bleathman?

  It's funny. I'm interested, Georgia, I'm so happy that you had such a, uh, maybe escaping adolescence reasonably scot-free as far as body image issues. And, I mean, I'm assuming, like, you're quite a small build, right? Like, have you always been?

• 12:02Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, yeah. Full disclaimer, very of a small build. And that's just genetics. I mean, my going into postpartum, again, genetics played a huge role for me. I probably fell under that umbrella of that stupid cliche of like, if you breastfeed, the weight will just fall off.

• 12:17Freya Bleathman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:18Georgia Allison?

  Um, which I find, I don't know about you, Raf, like, I fully expected that. Yeah.

• 12:24Freya Bleathman?

  And I did not lose any weight.

• 12:27Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 12:27Freya Bleathman?

  I think I put a bit on, yeah.

• 12:28Rafa Husain?

  I put on weight, yeah.

• 12:30Freya Bleathman?

  Which, and I was looking at the evidence, because you hear that every, I mean, I was like a doctor and I thought that's

• 12:35Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 12:35Freya Bleathman?

  just assumed that's what happened.

• 12:36Rafa Husain?

  Calories out, right, expenditure, yeah, no.

• 12:40Freya Bleathman?

  But it's actually, I mean, I think the difference at 12 months, if you've exclusively breastfed or not, it's like a kilo difference or something. It's not very much.

• 12:48Rafa Husain?

  Yeah.

• 12:49Freya Bleathman?

  To what you said about pregnancy, I feel like pregnancy has been the one time in my life where I have felt pretty good about my body. And I think it's partly for the first time, it was about how it functioned and what it was doing, rather than what it looked like. Like, it was so interesting. One of the things I noticed when I was pregnant was I didn't have tummy, like, I'm a tummy ache girl.

• 13:10Georgia Allison?

  Hmm.

• 13:11Freya Bleathman?

  I didn't have any tummy aches. And I think it's because, for the first time ever, I wasn't sort of subconsciously sucking in and tensing

• 13:18Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, wow.

• 13:18Freya Bleathman?

  my belly. Yeah, I just, I really noticed that. And even postpartum, I mean, full disclosure, I guess, going back to childhood and things, I wasn't overweight as a child. But I was always a bit bigger than my siblings and my friends and things like that. And at the moment, postpartum, if I did my BMI, I'd be obese.

• 13:37Rafa Husain?

  Yeah.

• 13:37Freya Bleathman?

  And it's funny.

• 13:38Georgia Allison?

  Which is such a redundant thing, isn't it, like the BMI?

• 13:41Freya Bleathman?

  I mean, it, it is. It has its flaws, but I do, you know, there are health conditions.

• 13:47Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, like you can sort of. Do you use it, um, in your practice?

• 13:51Freya Bleathman?

  Not so much in mine because we use growth charts for kids mostly. So they're the kind of percentiles and things like that. Uh, but even, I mean, biometrics, if I do my waist circumference, all of those sorts of things that might be a little bit better. And I'm sure if I did a body composition scan, like, I think I'm not a healthy weight as far as long-term health.

• 14:11Rafa Husain?

  Yeah.

• 14:11Freya Bleathman?

  Heart disease, diabetes, cancer risk, all of those sorts of things. But one thing in that pregnancy, it was sort of freeing pregnancy and postpartum because I had hyperemesis in my pregnancy. So I lost weight in the first trimester, but even though it continued the whole pregnancy, I put on way more than you're meant to put on in pregnancy.

• 14:31Rafa Husain?

  Interesting, yeah.

• 14:32Freya Bleathman?

  And I think that, and then seeing how all my friends looked postpartum, and some people would just go back to their normal genes really quickly. And some people, like, I'm eight months postpartum and I'm still pretty much the same weight as I was immediately post. And it kind of just made me realise that it really is genetics.

• 14:50Rafa Husain?

  It is, absolutely.

• 14:51Freya Bleathman?

  It's genetics and hormones and all of those sorts of things. Like, like, it wasn't that you, a few days postpartum, were eating better than me or exercising more or anything like that. Like, it really, it was almost sort of freeing.

• 15:06Rafa Husain?

  Yeah.

• 15:06Freya Bleathman?

  And I feel like now I'm, you know, I, I mean, my body kind of likes being a bit obese. Like, I kind of go up and down, but, you know, after my exams,

• 15:15Rafa Husain?

  Yes.

• 15:15Freya Bleathman?

  you know, when you're sitting down a lot and studying for my specialty exams, I was, I like put on a lot of weight. And I think I've always felt a lot of shame about that and felt like it was really um, a fault of my willpower or I'm lazy or, or anything like that. But I think, and I should know, I should know better. I know that obesity is a disease. There's a lifestyle factor, but there's, like we said, genetics, uh, environmental circumstances, whatever. But I feel like it was just this eye-opening experience that like, oh, it's, it, it is just, that's just my body.

• 15:53Rafa Husain?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:54Freya Bleathman?

  Like, it's not me.

• 15:55Rafa Husain?

  I love that. And I think it's one that we need to deep on this episode because there's one part of it that I've realised is absolutely genetics. I'm really similar to you, Freya. I've always been a bigger build. I've always been broad. I had a huge growth spurt between the ages of like 10 to 13. And there's a couple of underlying health conditions that kind of accelerated my puberty. So I think that genetics plays a role, but then your relationship to your body image. And when that's formed, is the other part that I started grappling with in postpartum. I do want to dig into that, but, um, first, we're going to hear from today's show sponsor.

• 16:37Rafa Husain?

  There's so much to think about when you start trying for a baby, so why not take the guesswork out? Clear Blue's advanced digital ovulation test is super easy to use and improves your chances of getting pregnant by tracking two key fertility hormones, estrogen and LH, to help you identify four or more fertile days. Their advanced digital ovulation test also comes with a free cycle tracking app, so you can easily figure out your fertile windows. And if you're just starting out on this journey, here's a quick explainer on why this is so important. In every cycle, there are only a few days when you can conceive. So having sex during your fertile windows is key if you're trying to get pregnant. Unfortunately, one in two couples try to conceive on the wrong days

• 17:19Rafa Husain?

  and only one in three couples get pregnant in their first month of trying. It can be challenging experience and fertility struggles can take a huge toll on women's mental health, which is why Clear Blue is committed to empowering women on their fertility journey. Learn more about Clear Blue's ovulation tests and the free cycle tracking app at clearblue.com. Always follow the directions for use. And thank you so much to Clear Blue for making this episode of The Room possible.

• 17:49Rafa Husain?

  Feeling about body growing up was really dictated by how I grew up and my background. So for those that might know, I am first generation Australian. I was born to Bangladeshi family who immigrated here. And if anyone knows Southeast Asian cultures, it is all about food. We are feeders, very hospitality orientated. And so growing up, a lot of our weekends revolved around going to dinner parties, family, friends and eating like really delicious curries, quite rich food and loving that part of our life. And so food was always at the centre of what we focused on. And I still to this day and absolutely love food. Like I'm a foodie, it's like the highlight of my day. I wake up thinking about what I'm gonna eat for dinner.

• 18:34Rafa Husain?

  That's all to say that, yeah, we have a very relaxed view about body and love food. I think that probably dictated, not an unhealthy relationship, but it wasn't like food for fuel. Like maybe it could have been a bit more nutritious. We probably could have had a little bit more health sort of orientated conversations. Cause Bangladeshi and Southeast Asian food does tend to be quite rich.

• 18:59Freya Bleathman?

  And that's interesting though, because I feel like I could almost argue the opposite.

• 19:04Rafa Husain?

  Oh yeah, like in simplicity of it.

• 19:06Freya Bleathman?

  Well, I think, much love to my mum, she was a little bit of an almond mum. Like we were pretty healthy, we were, we didn't really have sweets in the house. I remember I'd go to my friend's house and they'd have chips in the cupboard and I'd be like, they're just sitting there and you haven't eaten them yet. I mean, I remember once mum was cooking dinner and she, the oven was on, papa was sitting there, she was like, oh shit. And she like ran to the oven and pulled it out and there was a tray of sweets that had just melted into it. Cause she'd hidden it in the oven, like we were like animals. And I remember it because we like, we like, I got spoons and there were killer, melted killer pythons, probably mixed with like roast lamb from the week before.

• 19:45Georgia Allison?

  Oh my god, that's so funny.

• 19:47Freya Bleathman?

  It was her hiding spot.

• 19:49Rafa Husain?

  Yeah, that is hysterical.

• 19:51Freya Bleathman?

  But I think, and I've spoken to my brother about this, when we go to parties or whatever, we, it's like, like face to face, yeah, we're shoveling it in our mouths.

• 20:03Georgia Allison?

  Every man for themselves when they hit a party.

• 20:05Rafa Husain?

  Yeah, yeah, that is, it is a diff, it's an interesting counterpoint. Around the age of, I was probably three, my sister's five years old, she was about eight or even younger. Um, she got diagnosed with a condition called nephrotic syndrome, which is essentially where the kidneys struggle to sort of process protein. And one of the only ways to manage that is through a very intense steroid program. So she sort of went through a really challenging health journey. Fast forward two years, my parents sort of think it's all good. And then I started showing symptoms of the same condition and I.

• 20:44Freya Bleathman?

  And Raf, just quickly, what are the symptoms? Like what's one of the most obvious?

• 20:49Rafa Husain?

  Well, the symptoms of the actual disease was um, fluid retention. So I, when your body can't process protein in urine, it kind of builds up. And then you start looking like a bit inflamed and like lethargic and you know, uh, your blood isn't, your kidneys kind of stop functioning. So um, rushed up to the children's hospital, went through a few scans and I just, I remember being like, I think four, and my mum just kind of collapsing when she found out that I then had the same.

• 21:21Freya Bleathman?

  Cause your sister got better presumably, what was the, like what informed your mum's response? Why was she so devastated?

• 21:29Rafa Husain?

  I think she was just like, couldn't believe that she had to go through it with me.

• 21:32Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah, and go through the treatment.

• 21:34Rafa Husain?

  Yeah, I haven't spoken about any of this since becoming a mum. And now it's really hard to go through those medical conditions without thinking about what that might be like for my kids. The only treatment option is you would know Freya is really high doses of steroids um, to get your system sort of working again. And then steroids have another huge side effect, which creates insatiable hunger. Like I still remember what it feels like to be on Pranos alone, the medicine that I was on at that time. And mum and dad had to like, kind of like monitor the fridges overnight because it was ravenous.

• 22:12Rafa Husain?

  It was like us looking for sandwiches, like adding mayonnaise to them, scoffing that and just this insatiable crazy.

• 22:20Freya Bleathman?

  Appetite.

• 22:21Rafa Husain?

  Yeah, appetite. I was in prep all the way to grade four, five, significantly overweight. So if you see photos of me and my sister, um, for a good four or five years, we have like what's called a moon face, which is essentially like the side effect of being on steroids. We're really round, we're really water retention heavy, we look obese, like overweight. The main thing that I go back to, that I've pulled on recently is my relationship to body image. Was formed in those years because when your physical appearance can fluctuate at the drop of a hat, Freya, you see this all the time in your line of work, you know?

• 23:05Freya Bleathman?

  That's why I'm gonna give you that set.

• 23:07Rafa Husain?

  Yeah, in those years, mum and dad, especially mum, and you can say that with the message that she sent at the start of the week, really had to work with us on what we had to offer people outside of our looks. And personality was a really, really big thing, like being proud of who we are, being proud of our heritage, being proud people. Um, and also this like drive to make sure that the sickness didn't define us. Like we had so much more going on postpartum, bringing that forward. Um, you know, my body did fluctuate, I had the first pregnancy, I had all those comments where people were like, cause I am a bigger build, I actually didn't show for seven months, like six or seven months.

• 23:49Rafa Husain?

  And then second pregnancy rolled around pretty quick in between, I didn't have this huge recovery period. It kind of got me thinking that if you don't have big challenges with your body image early days, and the first time you kind of go through that is in postpartum, I understand why it can be such a debilitating process. Because so much of what I pulled on was from those early years.

• 24:10Freya Bleathman?

  But it could have gone either way, Raf. Like I think it's just such a testament to your mum that that experience had a positive impact on your body image.

• 24:19Rafa Husain?

  Eventually, yeah.

• 24:19Freya Bleathman?

  I mean, I'm thinking about patients, cause I've, I've worked in nephrology before with um, kids with nephrotic syndrome. And what I mostly work in now is rheumatology, which is another specialty where we use a lot of steroids. We've got a lot of kids with lupus, um, who are really unwell. Like we have often like young kids, but you know, there's a big spike in sort of around puberty and things, which is such a hard time anyway. And I think of these kids that are, you know, they're, they might be in ICU because they're bleeding into their lungs. And you know, we get them uh, under control on these huge doses of steroids and we're trying to wean them off. But some of them, it's, it's really hard to get them off. Some of them we never fully get them off steroids.

• 25:04Freya Bleathman?

  And they come into clinic and their first question is, when am I gonna stop the steroids?

• 25:10Rafa Husain?

  Because of the same side.

• 25:11Freya Bleathman?

  Because of the side effects, because of the weight gain and because of the moon face and the redistribution of body weight, tummy and, and things like that.

• 25:18Rafa Husain?

  I was hoping with medical advancements in thirty years, it wasn't as bad as it is.

• 25:22Freya Bleathman?

  We have a lot of kind of steroid sparing medications now that we can use. And so we're not getting, I mean, even our kids with arthritis, there's been huge advancements and they're not getting osteoporosis in their twenties necessarily anymore, which is another side effect you can get. But it just breaks my heart that, that it's like life or death. And still, they just wanna be off the steroids.

• 25:44Rafa Husain?

  Oh my gosh, yeah.

• 25:46Freya Bleathman?

  Parents, if you haven't looked into One Pass yet, this is your sign. It's a membership program for Australia's favourite retailers and it's all about saving you a bit of time and money. I could definitely do with more of both of those things at the moment. You get free delivery on eligible items or orders, which is a lifesaver. And when you scan your One Pass in store, you'll earn five times the flyby points on every shop at Bunnings, Kmart, Target and Office Works. So all that shopping for the kids or yourself earns you a little more back. Start your thirty day free trial today and unlock more in every shop with One Pass. And thank you so much to One Pass for making this episode of The Room possible. Terms and conditions apply, One Pass must be linked to an active Flybuys account.

• 26:27Rafa Husain?

  So we're at the census reveal, which we, did we touch on the fact that we have not seen the stats?

• 26:32Freya Bleathman?

  Well, I don't think we have.

• 26:33Rafa Husain?

  But Freya has, so this week, Freya is the keeper of the stat.

• 26:37Freya Bleathman?

  Yes.

• 26:38Rafa Husain?

  Um, to ground our topic in.

• 26:40Freya Bleathman?

  So the question is, what percentage of women who have had a baby in the last two years are using GLP-1 medications or diet pills?

• 26:51Georgia Allison?

  It's probably, sorry to cut you off there, but probably worth noting that only women who have had a baby in two years saw this part of the survey. So I did not see this part of the survey, given I have almost four year old. So yeah, just worth noting that for our listeners. But yeah, we do not know what, how many, what is the percentage?

• 27:12Freya Bleathman?

  Well, I won't get you to guess, Georgia, cause that didn't go well last week. You got really competitive, it was kind of scary. So the percentage of women two years postpartum using GLP-1 medications or diet pills is nine, nine percent.

• 27:26Georgia Allison?

  Nine percent.

• 27:27Freya Bleathman?

  Almost one in ten. What do you think?

• 27:30Georgia Allison?

  Okay.

• 27:32Rafa Husain?

  I don't know why that sounds higher than I thought, but.

• 27:35Freya Bleathman?

  Oh, see, I thought it was less. I would have expected it to be less.

• 27:38Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, I'm, I think that's probably what I thought. Um, around what, how many people who have had a baby in the last two years. And that really just goes back to the fact that I feel like the use of GLP-1s societally has really ramped up. At least in my world.

• 27:55Freya Bleathman?

  The two years postpartum women, there'll be some of those women that are pregnant again. There'll be some of those women that are breastfeeding or trying to conceive. So I think if we took those women out, probably their proportion would be higher. Of those that are eligible, could technically safely take the medication, those on it. I mean, in my friendship group, I don't know if anyone's taking it, but I wonder whether, because there's so much sort of shame and judgment, I wonder whether there are people taking the medication that I don't know about.

• 28:31Rafa Husain?

  Yeah, I have a few friends talking about wanting to go on. Most of my girlfriends have had two to three kids.

• 28:39Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 28:39Rafa Husain?

  Um, and if it's related to weight, most of it is related, the people that are considering it's related to weight and struggling to shake, um, perhaps like the, the last few kilos and eligible for it. Um, I have heard in friendship circles, people jumping on to non-doctor prescription sites to try and get them. And I didn't realise that you could actually get them. Yeah, or, I don't know, apparently you can get GLP-1s online.

• 29:09Georgia Allison?

  Without a prescription?

• 29:11Freya Bleathman?

  You, you get a prescription. So they're, the online prescribing services. So you, uh, put in, say, your weight and if you've got any blood tests and things like that. And you get linked to either a doctor or a nurse practitioner, a lot of them are. And they'll have a phone call with you. But I think the concern is, I mean, you could say your weight is anything. You could say your blood test is anything.

• 29:35Rafa Husain?

  Yeah.

• 29:36Freya Bleathman?

  Um, which I think is actually that first or the third article we spoke about, the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical, straight to your door. I think the concern with that was that, okay, well, if people are using these online prescribing services and then an online medication delivery service, where's that safety net to make sure that the people getting the drug are appropriate candidates?

• 29:57Rafa Husain?

  Yeah.

• 29:57Freya Bleathman?

  And also there, there is a black market. We've seen kids coming in.

• 30:01Rafa Husain?

  That's the part of it that I'm really struggling with because, um, full disclosure, I have a Manjaro prescription sitting at home for genetic predisposition to heart disease, which has come up postpartum.

• 30:17Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 30:17Rafa Husain?

  My blood levels have shown, um, a particular protein that has higher risk, um, cardiovascular.

• 30:25Georgia Allison?

  Disease?

• 30:25Rafa Husain?

  Disease, yeah.

• 30:26Georgia Allison?

  And that's what your father.

• 30:28Rafa Husain?

  Just what my dad died from. He died from a sudden heart attack and significant cardiovascular disease over two decades. He was pretty young and looked really lean. And, um, essentially in my recent, um, cardiologist appointment, they did a scan. And, um, we tend to have narrower nerves, I mean, sorry, narrower arteries.

• 30:48Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 30:48Rafa Husain?

  Um, and so that's an interesting thing, like the makeup of my heart, no matter how healthy I am. He basically, the cardiologist was basically like, you need to go on X medicine at X time at this age. He's like, we are not taking a single risk. I want you living past your dad's age, and dad was only 68. So that was like, the mortality part of that was the most terrifying conversation I've had in recent years. Because health has been this thing in my life, as we've just touched on.

• 31:16Freya Bleathman?

  Well, when we knew you, that was pretty recently. I remember we spoke about that appointment.

• 31:21Rafa Husain?

  Four weeks ago.

• 31:22Freya Bleathman?

  It was rattling.

• 31:23Rafa Husain?

  It was so rattling. I think there's like five or six different stages, um, sorry, dosages that you can go on. If you're getting prescribed outside of a, you know, a medical practitioner, a lot of people are jumping onto the highest dose.

• 31:38Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 31:39Rafa Husain?

  Which has significant impact. And that's where like that whole Ozempic face thing comes in where you're losing weight way too quickly.

• 31:48Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 31:48Rafa Husain?

  And the side effects of that are unknown, I think. Like, is it's kind of, you know, when I got the Manjaro prescription by my cardiologist, he said for me to get an eye test. Because a side effect that is coming out is blindness. Or like, he was like, you just need to make sure that, you know, your eyes don't have this issue. Um, because we'll have to relook at a medical, um, sort of option. So that's all to say that there's a lot of risk with these medicines. It's not just weight loss for weight loss sake. Like, if you're going to take these big intense doses to lose weight as quickly as possible, there is a big chance that you might be adding some other medical challenges.

• 32:31Freya Bleathman?

  Well, say, we had this medication, and I feel quite strongly about this. Say we had a medication that improved all-cause mortality, heart disease, kidney disease, you know, potential help with addictions and things like that without the weight loss. I think we'd be calling it an absolute wonder drug. Like, I really do think a lot of the concern, I think, is kind of faux concern. And it's rooted in fat phobia. Like, I, I really do strongly believe that, you know, we've got such good evidence that obesity is a multifactorial, complex disease that actually has only a very small part to do with choices and lifestyle and things like that.

• 33:14Freya Bleathman?

  But we see it as a moral failing rather than a medical condition. And I think that people don't like that someone who has gotten to this state because of greed or laziness, shouldn't be able to get the easy way out. They need to kind of, you know, gradually repent. And I wonder,

• 33:38Rafa Husain?

  Oh, interesting.

• 33:39Freya Bleathman?

  Would you, say you didn't have this family history, it wasn't recommended by your cardiologist. I guess my questions are, would you still consider going on it purely for the weight? And would you feel more or less comfortable talking about the fact that you're going on it?

• 33:57Rafa Husain?

  Very good questions. I don't think I would be going on it just purely for weight, but I, I would be lying if I didn't say that I'm still, you know, I did the, I did a body scanner at the gym a couple of weeks ago. And I'm still considered overweight. I have high visceral fat, a lot of overhang from my two pregnancies, all of that sort of stuff. I'd be lying if I didn't say that a part of me is like, oh, excited

• 34:24Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 34:25Rafa Husain?

  that by helping my heart, I'm also going to potentially, you know, be able to shake a few kilos here and there.

• 34:32Georgia Allison?

  Hmm.

• 34:32Rafa Husain?

  But I don't think I would, I don't think I'd be going to the doctors to be like, I would like to lose weight, therefore I want.

• 34:38Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 34:38Rafa Husain?

  Um, you know.

• 34:39Freya Bleathman?

  See, I think.

• 34:40Georgia Allison?

  I want to ask the question for you.

• 34:42Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah, I think I do want to go on it for the weight loss.

• 34:45Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 34:45Freya Bleathman?

  I, like, like you, I do have a really strong family history of heart disease and diabetes, uh, from young ages. And I think particularly postpartum, that I feel more anxious about that. And I think now that I'm also in the obese category, like, and with a child, like you said, like what's going to happen to my children, I, I do have more of a, a health kind of impetus to want to go on it. But I, I want to go on it purely for weight loss as well. Like, if it didn't have those benefits, I'd still be considering it. And it, yeah, I, I can't, I, I'd, that might really annoy people to hear. And it's funny, like, I really.

• 35:27Georgia Allison?

  I don't think it will. I mean, it might be, you might, probably women listening to it right now, Frey, being like, thank you.

• 35:33Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah.

• 35:33Georgia Allison?

  Thank you for saying that, because I'm sitting in that position right now.

• 35:36Rafa Husain?

  Yeah, that's, I mean, it's valid. I think the part that I'm grappling with, um, is the, maybe coming back to that bounce back.

• 35:46Georgia Allison?

  Hmm.

• 35:46Rafa Husain?

  Theme, right? I have a few friends, um, where this has come up in conversations. And friends who are pregnant are like, thank God, I'm going to have a GLP-1 after I have the baby. You know, during their pregnancy, already thinking about that. That stresses me out because I'm like, just in, like, you want to be like, just enjoy the pregnancy. And yeah, I think that it's just such a tricky time. It's a tricky time.

• 36:11Freya Bleathman?

  Uh, a little bit liberating.

• 36:13Rafa Husain?

  Liberating, yeah.

• 36:14Freya Bleathman?

  Like, I, it made me less anxious about all this weight gain that I was having. You know, aside from being, oh, am I going to get diabetes or preclampsia, all of those sorts of things, or increased risk of them. But I remember being like, you know, I'll just let my body do its thing. And if I need it, it's there.

• 36:31Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 36:32Rafa Husain?

  You have an option.

• 36:32Georgia Allison?

  It's like a safety net.

• 36:33Freya Bleathman?

  I think so.

• 36:34Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 36:35Freya Bleathman?

  But, I mean, maybe it's kind of on a macro level, making society less tolerant of seeing bigger bodies around. And, and maybe it is impacting the pressure people feel postpartum. But, I mean, I don't know if that'll ever go away.

• 36:49Georgia Allison?

  Just another, um, avenue that is being fed to us in our algorithms. Like, I remember being postpartum and at about the three-month mark, I was being fed on my Instagram For You page, just workouts, mummy workouts, like bang on three months. And it's like, they knew.

• 37:06Rafa Husain?

  So intense.

• 37:07Georgia Allison?

  And so I just imagine, and I'm putting myself back because I'm not postpartum, I'm further down the line, which we've talked about. But my postpartum, I was bloody raw.

• 37:16Rafa Husain?

  Yeah.

• 37:16Georgia Allison?

  Like, my boobs, my nipples were unrecognisable. I had these veiny boobs, lumpy, cesarean scar that I couldn't even look at. I have this funny, like, just a quick story of how I couldn't actually look at my scar because it was a bit scary for me. I'm not, I'm not medically minded. I'm not at all. I'm like queasy as fuck.

• 37:41Rafa Husain?

  Yeah.

• 37:42Georgia Allison?

  In terms of that. And I remember saying to my friends, like, yeah, it's not too big, like, it's about this big. And you, for the camera, like, about this big. And Matt had to like interject and be like, it's what big? I'm the only one who's looking at that because he had to like, he had to do my massage. And he had to like, change the, um, the pad. I mean, he's like, it's a little bit bigger than that. But all power to women who want to do something to make themselves feel better. Like, I, I really, that is like my top line here. But I would be lying if I didn't say that this idea of GLP-1s being fed into postpartum is making me a bit sad.

• 38:17Rafa Husain?

  Yeah.

• 38:17Georgia Allison?

  Because I feel as though it's a time where we, as women, who have gone through this complete neurological change, which we now know, and I've only recently known this, to be called, um, matrescence. And I just remember myself in that time, and I really was quite fragile. Like, I needed to be.

• 38:37Rafa Husain?

  So vulnerable.

• 38:37Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, I was so vulnerable. I needed to be looked after and cared for. Um, and sort of started to get to know myself, um, and my, and my children. So the idea of women, um, being fed this through the algorithms and through, you know, society pressures saying, yeah, you need to. Bounce back.

• 38:57Rafa Husain?

  Yeah.

• 38:57Georgia Allison?

  Like you've had the baby, well done, pat on the back.

• 38:59Rafa Husain?

  Now quickly go.

• 39:01Georgia Allison?

  Quickly go back into, and to look the way that you looked before you had a baby. And I just, yeah, it makes me a bit sad.

• 39:08Rafa Husain?

  Hmm.

• 39:08Georgia Allison?

  If I'm honest.

• 39:09Rafa Husain?

  That's exactly how I feel about it. I think that it would be harder to be postpartum now in today's day and age than it maybe once was. Because so much of it is online, there's so much pressure from social media. I, I struggle with the fact that women, we, we've got so much on our plate as it is. When you're um going through, you know, conce- conception, trying to conceive, then pregnancy and all that sort of stuff. This just feels like another added layer of complexity to think about body. And I, I, I totally get your point, Freya, around it, feeling liberating that there is a choice there. But it also makes me feel sad that that is even a consideration during this

• 39:55Rafa Husain?

  extreme transformation that your body's making. And I think overall, I have quite strong feelings about postpartum care and culture in Western societies as it is. And my petition is just for gentleness on bodies. Like we have a hyper fixation on productivity in postpartum. And my background, and we follow a lot of Ayurvedic principles, which is all about confinement, all about slowing down, all about rest and nourishment. And I wish the conversation was more around how do we nourish women in the best way possible? High iron, if you've had incredible blood loss.

• 40:37Freya Bleathman?

  Well, this is the thing with GLP-1s, like your appetite plummets.

• 40:40Rafa Husain?

  It completely climates, so then you're not actually nourishing yourself.

• 40:43Freya Bleathman?

  What if you've already got slightly low iron or some anemia from blood loss with the pregnancy? You're being leech dry.

• 40:50Rafa Husain?

  The people that I know are shells of a human, they can't even go to the gym because they have such low energy. Imagine doing that, when you're trying to breastfeed or child rear.

• 41:00Georgia Allison?

  Well, having a toddler, can you imagine being, yeah. A massive consideration for you if they've got that prescription sitting at home.

• 41:06Rafa Husain?

  Exactly, like the conversation should be, how do you fuel women to be the best that they need to be in this very, very full-on stage of your life? It just feels really complicated for this particular period of time. And I would question, yes, you might lose the weight, but you're gonna lose a lot of other things as well. And perhaps not make that experience as enjoyable as it could be.

• 41:32Freya Bleathman?

  Hmm. Yeah, well, I think on that note, Raf, we've got one more stat to maybe end on. Which was forty-nine percent of women who had a baby in the last two years deliberately ate less than they felt they needed.

• 41:47Georgia Allison?

  Wow, that surprises me.

• 41:50Freya Bleathman?

  Hmm.

• 41:52Rafa Husain?

  Full weight, I imagine, full weight loss and in, in postpartum.

• 41:56Georgia Allison?

  Which will probably feed into, if we do this um uh survey next year, I wonder what the percentage of women who are going to be using GLP-1s and diet pills may increase. I feel like that feeds rightly into um into that question for next year. And also that they're not going anywhere, GLP-1s are like sticking around.

• 42:18Rafa Husain?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:18Freya Bleathman?

  Oh, they're increasing exponentially.

• 42:20Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 42:20Freya Bleathman?

  Like I think there's two percent of Australians, well, two percent of Australians are on one of the ones for diabetes. That's not including the ones that are made for weight loss in particular. I think the US is like fifteen percent or something.

• 42:32Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 42:33Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah, we'll see what the stat does like.

• 42:34Georgia Allison?

  Next year.

• 42:35Freya Bleathman?

  Next year.

• 42:36Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 42:37Freya Bleathman?

  So big episode, guys, we had a lot of thoughts and I'm sure the listeners will too. And we would love to hear your thoughts if you email us at [email protected] or check us out on socials.

• 42:50Georgia Allison?

  We'll be back in your ears on Thursday. Thank you, bye.

• 42:53Freya Bleathman?

  Bye.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  Shameless Media. This podcast was recorded on Wurundjeri land, always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

• 43:08Speaker 04

  When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's Fall Drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy-to-layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon Fall Lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in store and on lululemon.com now.