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Preface

The current acceleration in medical discoveries parallels Moore’s law for computer chips. In the 1950s, medical knowledge doubled every 50 years, by the 1980s it doubled every seven years, and now medical knowledge is estimated to double about every two months (Densen 2011). How can busy obstetricians keep pace? Through seven editions, Protocols for High‐Risk Pregnancies has helped address this exact challenge. Providing just‐in‐time content, its focus on protocols and guidelines helps organize medical thinking, avoid heuristic errors of omission and commission, and optimize maternal and fetal outcomes.

As with the prior six editions, we have once again assembled some of the world’s top obstetrical and medical experts. Concomitantly, the seventh edition adds a number of new features including protocols on opioid use, misuse and addiction in pregnancy and postpartum, noninvasive prenatal diagnosis of aneuploidy, periconceptional genetic screening, and expanded protocols on maternal valvular heart disease and cardiomyopathies; we have also added protocols on arboviruses including Zika, and malaria, to reflect new technologies, changing clinical disease patterns, and emerging global pathogens.

As in prior editions, our focus has been on conducting a comprehensive survey of recent relevant literature to extract the most current evidence‐based practices and then presenting them with concise, focused text and crystal‐clear clinical paradigms. In areas where there are reasonable clinical alternatives, where no single compelling randomized clinical trial or a clear metaanalytical preference is available, we have again asked the authors to use their best judgment to make recommendations.

We are deeply indebted to our common mentor, Dr John T. Queenan, who conceived of this text to help “clinicians in the trenches” and hope we have been faithful to his vision. We also appreciate the help of our editorial team at John Wiley & Sons, Deirdre Barry and Anupama Sreekanth.

Catherine Y. Spong, MD

Charles J. Lockwood, MD, MHCM

Reference

1 Densen P. Challenges and opportunities facing medical education. Trans Am Clin Climatol Assoc 2011; 122:48–58.