Our world-leading research centres
Tommy’s is the UK’s leading charity funding research into pregnancy and maternal health. We’ve been funding life-changing research into the causes of pregnancy complications for over 30 years and are committed to finding out why miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth happens.
In the last year, we have invested over £2m in medical, psychological and health service research – directly contributing to many improvements in treatments and care for pregnant women across the country.
From increased understanding of the causes of pregnancy complications, to greater support for those who experience the pain of losing a baby, our research is making a difference and helping us to ensure that all pregnant women and birthing people have equal access to high-quality antenatal care, effective treatments and support.
Research from our centres continues to be cited in national clinical guidelines and our researchers continue to be active in writing clinical guidelines to disseminate best practice.
As well as funding ground-breaking research, we help fund innovative translational research clinics that connect researchers with patients, working in partnership to advance understanding of stillbirth, miscarriage, neonatal death and premature birth.
Read more about the impact of our research
Improving maternity care
We believe that everyone should be provided with the best care and support, which is why improving care is one of the 4 central goals of our strategy. Ensuring that good, safe and evidence-based care is available to all is a crucial part of making pregnancy and birth safer.
Supported by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives, Tommy’s National Centre for Maternity Improvement is working to close the gap between best clinical science and best care. Our team have developed the Tommy's Pathway: a clinical decision support tool which will support healthcare professionals to provide personalised care to each patient to reduce the rates of stillbirth and premature birth. Crucially, it will allow them to provide the right care at the right time, no matter where someone lives. Following piloting the Pathway across 3 hospitals in England, the team are continuing to refine the tool and gather more evidence of its impact in improving outcomes for mothers and babies.
Our team at Tommy’s National Centre for Miscarriage Research have continued to have real breakthroughs with new national miscarriage care guidelines. In July 2023 the Government released the Pregnancy Loss Review in which they cited the Tommy's Graded Model of Care. This model is designed to improve the care and support given to women and birthing people who experience a miscarriage, and earlier this year our team trialled the model at Birmingham Women's and Children's Hospital. In October 2024, Baroness Merron, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Patient Safety, Women's Health and Mental Health, visited our Miscarriage Research Centre in Birmingham to meet families affected by baby loss and see first hand the work our researchers are doing. We will continue to work with Government to make sure the findings of the Graded Model of Care pilot and our other research to support families affected by baby loss are heard.
Read more the impact of Tommy’s National Centre for Maternity Improvement
Tommy’s pregnancy information
We provide expert, evidence-based pregnancy information to support women and families throughout their pregnancy journey. Our information resources, digital tools, midwife-led support line and online communities cover all aspects of pregnancy from pre-conception and safer pregnancy, through to wellbeing and support for families who are pregnant after loss.
We inform and empower families to make healthy behaviour and lifestyle choices by providing evidence-based, high-quality information, ultimately leading to a reduction in the number of babies who die during pregnancy or birth
“Tommy’s was a real lifeline for me. Their clear and accessible information about sleep positions helped me to understand the value of sleeping on my side during my third trimester. It was very comforting to know I could easily access trustworthy, midwife-approved information on the Tommy’s website throughout my pregnancy.”
Phillipa, mum to baby Jessica who was born in February 2020
