Information for health professionals

Are you involved in the care of pregnant women? If you are, then our pregnancy information can help you give pregnant women additional support. Our information has been written with extensive editorial support from health professionals, midwives and obstetricians.

All our books and leaflets are available to order online at The Tommy's shop.

Our resources

Tommy's provides a range of FREE (postage and packaging is chargeable on some orders) books and leaflets relating to pre-pregnancy and pregnancy. These include:

Your guide to a healthy pregnancy (book)
Planning for a healthy pregnancy (book)
Young woman's guide to pregnancy (book)
Top tips for a healthy pregnancy (booklet)
Pre-eclampsia (leaflet)
Miscarriage (leaflet)
When a baby dies – information for parents, for family and for friends (booklet)
Toxoplasmosis and pregnancy (leaflet)

Tommy’s midwives: a pregnancy information service for pregnant women

Our pregnancy information enquiry service is run by midwives for mums-to-be, their partners, families and friends.

The phone line is open Mondays to Fridays, 9am to 5pm, and our midwives are ready to answer any pregnancy-related questions, providing expert advice in a confidential setting.

If you think this service might be of additional help or support to the pregnant women you see, please pass on the Tommy’s midwives helpline number 0870 777 30 60 and email info@tommys.org. Email enquiries are usually responded to within five working days, although if we are busy, this may take a little longer.

Tommy's produces handy information line cards to advertise this telephone number – if you'd like some to pass to the pregnant women you see, please contact us directly on 08707 707070.

Research news

Vitamins in pre-eclampsia (VIP) trial
A small trial, funded by Tommy’s, initially found that the incidence of pre-eclampsia was dramatically decreased (by more than 50%) in high-risk women if they took high doses of vitamins C and E compared with high-risk women who did not take the vitamins.

Following these results, the Tommy’s research team at St Thomas’ Hospital in London gained funding for a large clinical trial to assess if this finding was true and could be proven in a larger trial. The Vitamins in Pre-eclampsia (VIP) trial recruited more than 2,400 women who were at high-risk of developing pre-eclampsia – giving half of them high doses of vitamins C and E and the other half placebo (dummy) tablets. These women started taking the tablets between 14 and 22 weeks of pregnancy and took them every day until they had their babies.

The results of this larger trial showed that these high doses of vitamins C and E did not prevent pre-eclampsia in the high-risk women, and actually increased the chances of having a low-birthweight baby, although the likely effect on their long-term health was negligible.

This result means that women at high risk of developing pre-eclampsia should not take high doses of vitamins C and E in pregnancy. The small doses of vitamins found in pregnancy-specific multivitamin preparations may infer a slight benefit to the outcome of the pregnancy.

Results were published in the high-profile medical journal The Lancet (http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS014067360668433X/abstract).

View Tommy's latest research news.