Dr. Thomas F. McElrath, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. McElrath serves two roles regarding his practice in obstetrics and women’s health: The first is as a clinician specializing in Maternal-Fetal Medicine with a particular interest in maternal health, and the second is as a researcher seeing solutions to the prediction and treatment of complications in pregnancy.

As a physician, Dr. McElrath is a leader in the management of pregnancies that are at high risk of preterm delivery, preeclampsia, and other hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. He is the Medical Director of the Preterm Birth Clinic at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. The clinic specializes in a variety of contemporary techniques to prevent preterm/recurrent preterm delivery, including abdominal cerclage. At the same time, he runs several clinics specializing in the treatment of chronic medical conditions in pregnancy, including the nation’s first Neurology in Pregnancy Clinic specializing in treating patients with chronic neurological disorders, particularly epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. Dr. McElrath is also highly experienced in the management of Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis during pregnancy and has a more recent sub specialized interest in the management of Cystic Fibrosis in pregnancy.

As a researcher, Dr. McElrath is the founder and Principal Investigator of the LIFECODES Birth Cohort. This is one of the largest birth cohorts in North America and is run out of the Brigham & Women’s Hospital. Dr. McElrath’s research group specializes in two separate areas of pregnancy epidemiology: The first is in the use of machine learning in the development of molecular biomarkers that signal a patient’s risk of impending pregnancy complications including preeclampsia. The second is in the investigation of environmental endocrine disrupting exposures that increase a patient’s risk of preeclampsia or preterm birth.

The LIFECODES cohort has been recruiting since 2006 and enrolls approximately eight patients per week.  

Dr. McElrath holds the titles of:

• Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School

• Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health

• Medical Director of the Preterm Birth Clinic, Brigham & Women’s Hospital

• Director of Research, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Brigham & Women’s Hospital

• Principle Investigator, The LIFECODES Birth Cohort

Education:

• BA in Anthropology and Germanic Literature, University of Michigan

• PhD in Demography, University of Pennsylvania

• MD, Harvard Medical School

• Residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Brigham & Women's/Massachusetts General Hospitals

• Fellowship in Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Brigham & Women’s Hospital

Licenses & Certifications:

• Maternal Fetal Medicine Subspecialty Board Certification, American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology

• General Obstetrics and Gynecology Board Certification, American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology

• Licensed in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts