Shakila Thangaratinam is a professor of maternal and perinatal health at University of Birmingham. As Consultant Obstetrician she is involved in the care of high-risk mothers at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust.  

Professor Thangaratinam has established a strong portfolio of research in maternal and perinatal health. Her work focuses on prediction, prevention and treatment of complications in mothers with pre-eclampsia, epilepsy, diabetes, and obesity. Her publications include papers in high-impact journals such as the Lancet and the BMJ, and she has accrued research income of £9 million. She leads the International Weight Management in Pregnancy (i-WIP) collaborative group (40 researchers, 16 countries), with the largest live repository of individual data of over 30,000 participants (BMJ 2017). The findings of this work informed the UK Chief Medical Officers’ recommendations on physical activity in pregnancy. She leads the prediction of pre-eclampsia IPPIC (International Prediction of Complications in Pregnancy) collaborative network (73 collaborators, 21 countries), one of the largest global repositories of standardised Individual Participant Data (IPD) of over five million pregnancies. She has published in first or last author position in Lancet (2019, 2015, 2012), BMJ (2017, 2016, 2012, 2011), Lancet Global Health (2017), HTA monographs (2018, 2017, 2017, 2012).

Shakila has launched a project with the World Health Organization (WHO) offering insight into COVID-19’s global effects on pregnancy. The PregCOV-19 project, led by the WHO Collaborating Centre for Global Women’s Health at University of Birmingham, aims to evaluate the rapidly emerging evidence on maternal and offspring outcomes and risks in women with suspected or confirmed COVID-19.

Shakila is also taking part in online workshops aimed at improving the care of pregnant women during the current COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in low- and middle-countries with international women’s health charity Elly.

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