Professional background
Dr Sara Hillman is an associate professor and consultant obstetrician & fetal medicine specialist at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH). She manages all aspects of pregnancy including both low-risk and high-risk pregnancies (especially those with complex fetal and maternal prenatal issues) and delivers at UCLH. She runs a weekly fetal medicine scanning clinic, specialising in complex fetal anomalies with possible genetic aetiologies.
She strives for excellence in her academic role and champions medical education. She has more than 20 years experience in obstetric practice, having qualified from University College London in 2003, with an additional BSc. in neuroscience. In 2014 she was awarded her PhD which investigated the effect of genes and environment on fetal growth in 2014. She currently supports trainee obstetricians and gynaecologists in her role as academic training programme director for the London School Obstetrics and Gynaecology and is an educational/clinical supervisor to several junior doctors.
She has led on several quality improvement projects in UCLH including the roll out of pre-eclampsia screening as well as introducing a dedicated service to turn breech babies to allow for safer vaginal birth, plus presenting data about the added value of genetic testing for fetal structural anomalies which was recently published. She leads on many research initiatives with active projects recruiting at UCLH and has a current academic portfolio with £4M awarded in funding. She is deputy director at UCLH for the newly funded Tommy’s Preterm Birth Centre. She is a member of the North London Maternity Safety Review Network, helping to analyse local maternal outcomes and emergency maternity care.
Her other interests include providing informed consent and decision making tools to patients. She has led on the Women’s Health digital strategy, line managing a new maternity data engineer post designed to enhance digital capacity and translation of routine data into innovative clinical strategies.
Research interests
Dr Hillman runs a research group that is investigating the mechanisms that drive pre-eclampsia and fetal growth restriction by studying the communication between cells in tissues that make up a pregnancy (the fetus, placenta and womb). The group is funded by the Medical Research Council and recruit pregnant patients at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
She is a co-investigator on two other major studies running at University College Hospital, looking at new technologies to reduce stillbirth and to investigate normal human development. Dr Hillman is passionate about improving maternal and fetal health globally and has run many global projects focusing on anaemia, poor fetal growth and severe obstetric complications.
Publications
- Niccole Ranaei-Zamani, Anna L David, Dimitrios Siassakos, Sara Hillman and Subhabrata Mitra. Saving babies and families from preventable harm: a review of the current state of fetoplacental monitoring and emerging opportunities. npj Womens Health 2, 10 (2024).
- Pui Pik Law, Francisco Rodriguez-Algarra, Fredrika Asenius, Maria Gregori, Robert AE Seaborne, Selin Yildizoglu, James, RC Miller, Robin Mesnage, Michael, N Antoniou, Weilong Li, Qihua Tan, Sara L Hillman, Vardhman K Rakyan, David J Williams, Michelle L Holland. Ribosomal DNA copy number is associated with body mass in humans and other mammals. Accepted Nature Communications.
- Nzelu D, Palmer T, Stott D, Pandya P, Napolitano R, Casagrandi D, Ammari C, Hillman S. First trimester screening for pre-eclampsia and targeted aspirin prophylaxis: a cost-effectiveness cohort study. BJOG. 2023 Jul 11.
- Colley CS, Hutchinson JC, Whitten SM, Siassakos D, Sebire NJ, Hillman SL. Routine placental histopathology findings from women testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 during pregnancy: Retrospective cohort comparative study. BJOG. 2023 Jul;130(8):959-967.
- Yong, H.E.J.; Maksym, K.; Yusoff, M.A.B.; Salazar-Petres, E.; Nazarenko, T.; Zaikin, A.; David, A.L.; Hillman, SL§.; Sferruzzi-Perri, A.N§. Integrated Placental Modelling of Histology with Gene Expression to Identify Functional Impact on Fetal Growth. Cells 2023, 12 §joint last
- Thapaliya B, Yadav SK, Bhattarai S, Giri S, Sapkota S, Arjyal A, Hillman S et al. Health worker perspectives on access to antenatal care in rural plains Nepal during the COVID-19 pandemic. PLoS ONE 18(4): e0284796. 2023 Apr 24
- Naomi Saville. Sanju Bhattarai, Helen Harris Fry…. Sushil Baral, Sara Hillman. Study Protocol for a Randomized Controlled trial of a virtual antenatal intervention for improved diet and iron intake in Kapilvastu district, Nepal: VALID. BMJ Open 2023 13: e064709
- Bhandari S, Dolma P, Mukerji M... Hillman SL. Population History and Genome Wide Association Studies of Birth Weight in a Native High Altitude Ladakhi Population. Plos One. 2022 Sep 20;17(9):
- Sharma KA, Singh N, Hillman S, Mathur P, Yadav K, Garg A, Dadhwal V, Bhatla N. Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies among first-trimester pregnant women during the second wave of the pandemic in India. Int J Gyn Obs. 2022 Mar 24:10.1002/ijgo.14189.
- Vaughan OR, Maksym K, Silva E… Hillman SL, Spencer R, David AL, Rosario FJ, Powell TL, Jansson T. Placenta-specific Slc38a2/SNAT2 knockdown causes fetal growth restriction in mice. Clin Sci (Lond). 2021 Sep 17;135(17):2049-2066.
- Dolma P, Dadhwal V, Kular D, Williams DJ, Montgomery HE, Hillman SL. High-altitude population neonatal and maternal phenotypes associated with birthweight protection. Pediatr Res. 2021 Jun 8
- Halkias J, Rackaityte E, Hillman SL, Aran D, Mendoza V, Marshall L, MacKenzie T, Burt T. CD161 mediates prenatal immune suppression of IFNgamma-producing PLZF+ T cells. Journal Clinical Investigation. 2019: 12(9): 3562-3577