The Week in MFM
For patients and families
Each week our physicians review the newest research in high-risk pregnancy care. This week's headline: the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, the professional society for high-risk pregnancy specialists, published new guidance affirming that patients facing pregnancy complications deserve complete, honest counseling about every treatment option, wherever they live. Researchers also took important steps toward more personalized care in gestational diabetes and toward smarter ultrasound tools for identifying larger babies at risk of delivery complications.
None of this week's findings change your current care plan. If you have questions about anything here, bring them to your next visit. We read this research so your care always reflects the latest evidence.
Quiet weeks reveal a specialty's center of gravity. The most consequential publication of this one was not a trial but a statement of professional identity: the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's September 15 special statement declaring abortion care and counseling core to the practice of maternal-fetal medicine, with concrete workflow guidance for high-risk pregnancy management in restricted states. Around it, the September journals pushed two quieter frontiers, the unbundling of gestational diabetes into distinct phenotypes and the shift from size-based to outcome-based prediction at the late third-trimester growth scan.
SMFM: abortion care and counseling are core to MFM practice, even under restrictions
The special statement (Pregnancy, September 15, endorsed by the Society of Family Planning) directs MFM specialists to give all patients at increased risk of complications accurate, evidence-based counseling on health risks and the full range of management options including abortion; to convene interdisciplinary institutional processes that clarify legal interpretations before emergencies arise; to build transfer partnerships with centers in surrounding states; and to know the abortion funds and travel-assistance resources available to patients.
Source: SMFM Special Statement, Pregnancy (DOI) · EurekAlert summary · Healio coverage
Multiple sclerosis in pregnancy: a 2026 expert clinical review
An expert clinical review in AJOG (online September 8) consolidates current evidence on MS across the reproductive lifespan, including preconception planning around disease-modifying therapy, management during pregnancy, and the postpartum period.
Source: Balshi et al., AJOG (PubMed)
FDA opens feedback on pregnancy exposure registry enrollment
On September 11 the FDA requested comment on a Pregnancy Exposure Registry Enrollment Project: a planned survey of roughly 400 clinicians on awareness of and barriers to enrolling pregnant patients in exposure registries, noting that many registries under-enroll and therefore yield too little safety data on medication use in pregnancy.
Source: RAPS: This Week at FDA (Sep 11)
Diabetes Care puts GDM heterogeneity front and center
A data-driven cluster analysis in the September issue of Diabetes Care identifies distinct GDM phenotypes carrying different risks of perinatal complications and postpartum diabetes, and an accompanying perspective (Sweeting et al., 49:1549) argues that timing and severity of maternal hyperglycemia define clinically meaningful GDM subtypes rather than a single disease. Cluster-specific effect sizes were not independently confirmable from accessible sources this week.
Source: Phenotypic clusters study (PMC) · Sweeting perspective, Diabetes Care
How to read neonatal outcomes in GDM treatment trials
Göbl and colleagues (AJOG, online September 1) dissect what clinicians should consider when interpreting treatment effects on neonatal outcomes in GDM trials, including the pitfalls of composite endpoints and birthweight-based outcome definitions.
Source: Göbl et al., AJOG (PubMed)
Machine learning at the 35–37 week scan to predict LGA with adverse outcome
Lopian et al. (UOG September issue, 2026;68:361-371) developed and tested machine-learning models at the routine late third-trimester ultrasound to predict delivery of a large-for-gestational-age neonate with adverse perinatal outcome, targeting the clinically meaningful subset rather than LGA per se. Reported performance figures were not independently confirmable from accessible sources; treat as model development, not validated screening.
Source: Lopian et al., UOG (DOI)
Prenatal genetics saw no substantive new studies, guidance, or FDA/laboratory announcements in the window, and preterm birth produced no new trials or guidance; last week's ACOG cerclage clinical practice guideline remains the recent anchor in that domain.
Reviewed by our physicians before publication · This digest summarizes published research and is not medical advice.
