Professor Catherine Aitken

I am Professor of Maternal and Fetal Medicine at the University, where I lead a research group within the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. I also work as an Honorary Consultant in maternal medicine at the Rosie Hospital, Cambridge, where I deliver babies and care for women with medically complex pregnancies. I am a Fellow of Trinity College, where I teach undergraduate medical students and direct studies for the clinical medical students.

Project/study information 

My major research focus is understanding and optimising the long-term outcomes of medically complex pregnancies, for example pregnancies affected by placental insufficiency or maternal cardiovascular disease.  

A key method we use is data linkage to routinely-collected sources. A key example is our development of an innovative mother-and-child pregnancy data-linkage platform (POPStar), involving data from the University of Cambridge, NHS England, the Department for Education and the Office of National Statistics. An example of POPStar platform output is our recent study (PLOS Medicine PMID:37093852) of the mid-childhood educational outcomes following fetal growth restriction, which has already generated interest from clinical priority-setting groups. My group also have expertise in primary care data linkage and to electronic hospital records. 

My group also works with placental models to understand the impact of drug treatments on the placenta. This work includes primary trophoblasts from term pregnancies and also organoid models. Our studies on metformin have had directly translatable outcomes, including citations in drug licensing for gestational diabetes and in international clinical guidelines. 

Other examples of our research interests include: 

• Maternal death review and pregnancy care in Uganda (in collaboration with Professor Annettee Nakimuli)
• Reproductive health care policy (in collaboration with Professor Abigail Aiken)
• Understanding how women experience medically complex pregnancies