Arri Coomarasamy

I lead two research teams, one focusing on treatments to prevent miscarriages and the other targeting ways to stop mothers dying during childbirth.

One in 4 pregnancies end in a miscarriage. In my role as the Director of the Tommy’s National Centre for Miscarriage Research, I lead a world-class team of scientists and doctors, researching to stop the occurrence of miscarriages. 

Every 2 minutes a mother dies during childbirth somewhere in the world. A fifth of these deaths are from postpartum haemorrhage (excessive bleeding at childbirth). I lead an international team of researchers focused on finding ways to prevent women dying from excessive bleeding at childbirth.

I received my undergraduate medical education from the University of Birmingham, and completed my subspecialist training in reproductive medicine and surgery at Guy’s Hospital, London. 

My research portfolio includes numerous national and international multicentre randomised controlled trials, including:

• The PROMISE Trial (NEJM, 2015), exploring the role of progesterone in women with unexplained recurrent miscarriages,
• The WHO CHAMPION Trial (NEJM, 2018), studying the effects of heat-stable carbetocin to prevent postpartum haemorrhage,
• The TABLET Trial (NEJM, 2019), evaluating the effects of levothyroxine therapy to prevent miscarriages in women with thyroid antibodies,
• The AIMS Trial (NEJM, 2019), assessing the effects of prophylactic antibiotics before miscarriage surgery in low-income countries,
• The PRISM Trial (NEJM, 2019), evaluating the effects of progesterone therapy for women with early pregnancy bleeding,
• The MifeMiso Trial (Lancet, 2020), exploring the role of misoprostol with or without mifepristone in the medical management of missed miscarriages,
• The E-MOTIVE Trial (NEJM, 2023), exploring the effects of early detection and first-response management of postpartum haemorrhage with a bundle of care in low resource countries.
• The LOCI Trial (ongoing), studying the effects of letrozole versus clomifene, with or without metformin, for ovulation induction in women with polycystic ovary syndrome.
  
• The E-MASTER Trial (ongoing), exploring the effects of early detection and bundled treatment of postpartum haemorrhage at caesarean births in low resource countries. 

I take particular pride in mentoring doctors and researchers, and several of the trainees have become outstanding clinicians and researchers.

I serve or have served in the past on several international and national committees, including grant funding boards for NIHR, MRC, Wellcome and DfID, the BJOG editorial board, the RCOG Wellbeing of Women Research Panel, various committees of the WHO, the Early Pregnancy Clinical Studies Group, the Reproductive Medicine Clinical Studies Group, and the GLOW organising committee. I am the founding trustee of Ammalife, a UK-registered charity with a global mission of reducing maternal deaths in low-income countries (www.ammalife.org).