Pregnancy and Congenital Heart Disease

Prof. Jolien Roos-Hesselink has worked as a cardiologist since 1992 at the Erasmus MC, Department Congenital Cardiology. In 1987 she obtained her medical degree at the University of Utrecht. In 2004 she defended at the Erasmus University her thesis Congenital Heart Disease at Adult Age. Her clinical work and research interests lie in the area of adults with congenital heart defects, with special attention to the aortic valve defects and aortic pathology and pregnancy in people with heart disease. She was appointed in 2009 as Professor and Head of the Department of Congenital Cardiology at Erasmus MC. She is a board member of the European Working Group for congenital heart defects of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and founder and chairman of a major global registry on pregnancy in people with heart disease (ROPAC).Prof. Mark Johnson is Professor in Clinical Obstetrics at Imperial College, based at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. He qualified from St George's Hospital Medical School in 1982 after accrediting in General Medicine, Endocrinology and Diabetes, he retrained in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. His early research work focused on the neuroendocrinology of the oxytocin and vasopressin release, but later moved into the endocrinology of obstetrics focusing on the role of the hormone relax in reproduction. Since then the most important topics in his research activity have become preterm labour and the impact of heart disease on pregnancy outcome. He works in the combined Cardiac Disease in Pregnancy Clinic of the Chelsea and Westminster and Royal Brompton Hospitals.