Dame Lesley Regan is a British gynaecologist She is Professor and Head of Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust at St Mary's Hospital, and Deputy Head of the Division of Surgery, Oncology, Reproductive Biology and Anaesthetics at Imperial College London. She was elected the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 2016, the second woman and the first in 64 years to hold this position. In her first presidential address, she discussed the importance of a healthy lifestyle for a safe pregnancy, and the risks of obesity. Regan graduated from the Royal Free Hospital, London in 1980 before becoming a registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge. She was awarded an MD thesis after a secondment to the Medical Research Council’s Embryo and Gamete Research Group before moving to London to be consultant and senior lecturer in obstetrics and gynaecology at St Mary’s Hospital, where she is now chair and head of the department. In March 2007, she featured in the BBC's Prof Regan's Beauty Parlour. She was one of the first women to hold a chair in obstetrics and gynaecology in the UK, the first being Margaret Fairlie who was appointed Professor of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at the University of Dundee in 1940. She is also co-director of the UK’s Baby Bio Bank ; a pregnancy tissue archive which will underpin future translational research into the major complications of pregnancy. The Baby Bio Bank was established on 1 November 2013, by two London Universities, University College London and Imperial College London, with funding by Wellbeing of Women. They collect samples from the three key members of the family: mother, father and baby, allowing hereditary factors from both parents to be tracked. They require a sample of blood from mother and father and a piece of term placenta which is routinely discarded. Regan was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to women's healthcare.
Publications
She has written several books on pregnancy and miscarriage including Your Pregnancy Week by Week, and Miscarriage: What Every Woman Needs to Know. Her book, Miscarriage: What Every Woman Needs to Know, written in 2018, explores how one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage and how it is the most common complication of pregnancy and also one of the least understood. Professor Lesley Regan is the first woman to hold a chair on obstetrics and gynaecology in the country and for the past decade she has worked to establish the biggest miscarriage clinic in the world. This book gives up-to-date information on the many causes of miscarriage and the latest treatments available. It covers the chances of a successful pregnancy, how to prepare for and cope with the next pregnancy, infertility, and gives answers to the most commonly asked questions on the subject of miscarriage. Revised and updated to take account of the latest developments in the study of miscarriage, this book is the book everyone who has ever suffered a miscarriage will need. She lives in London, and is the mother of twin girls, aged 24 in 2016.
