Christina Paidas Teefey, MD, on earlier fetal diagnosing and future psychosocial support

The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine’s 2026 Pregnancy Meeting is officially underway from the Caesars Forum in Las Vegas, Nevada, with countless oral abstracts and poster presentations scheduled to highlight the very latest in the space.¹

The meeting officially kicked off on February 8 and runs through Friday, February 13. Contemporary OB/GYN will be covering the meeting in multiple ways, including highlighting the latest study data, as well as speaking with the meeting’s experts and study investigators.²

For Christina Paidas Teefey, MD, maternal-fetal medicine specialist at the Institute for Maternal Fetal Health at Nemours Children’s—who is attending the meeting—earlier diagnoses in pregnancy are reshaping the way maternal–fetal medicine specialists counsel and support families.

“In the setting of where the maternal–fetal community is with advanced imaging, first-trimester diagnoses are becoming more and more frequent,” Paidas Teefey said. With improvements in genetic testing and prenatal screening sensitivity and specificity, clinicians are identifying complex conditions much earlier in pregnancy than in previous years.

That shift carries important implications for referral patterns and patient counseling.

“It is definitely something on my mind—the earlier diagnoses, earlier counseling referrals into fetal centers, much earlier,” she said. “We want to be able to serve these families early. We want to be able to have discussions about options as early as possible, and we want to be able to support that family through whatever decision they make.”

For Paidas Teefey, earlier detection is not simply a diagnostic milestone—it is a call to action for the broader obstetric community. Prompt referral to fetal centers allows for coordinated, expert-level discussions that may shape not only management decisions, but also birth planning and long-term care strategies.

“It is a multidisciplinary family,” she said, describing the team-based model that increasingly defines fetal care. Early involvement of multiple specialties—regardless of whether a condition is life-limiting, chronic, or associated with uncertain outcomes—allows families to hear consistent, expert guidance while considering next steps.

“We should be having those discussions early on so that we can help families think through next steps and then begin with our obstetric colleagues’ birth planning,” she said, noting that gestational age and patient preferences often shape the timing and direction of care.

Beyond diagnostics and procedural advances, Paidas Teefey emphasized the need for stronger integration of psychosocial care into fetal therapy programs. Her focus, she said, extends beyond clinical intervention to measurable family-centered outcomes.

“My brain immediately—and my heart—goes right to psychosocial intervention and support for families,” she said.

She pointed to the need for more robust screening of families undergoing fetal intervention, those facing life-limiting diagnoses, and those navigating bereavement. “We really need to hone in on what a family individually needs now and how we can intervene and actually have outcomes that are measurable,” Paidas Teefey said. She views the expansion of patient-reported outcomes research within fetal therapy as one of the most important areas of development over the next several years.

As diagnostic capabilities continue to advance, she suggested that the future of maternal–fetal medicine will depend not only on earlier detection, but on earlier, more holistic support for families navigating complex decisions.

References:

1. Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine 2026 Pregnancy Meeting. SMFM.org. Accessed February 9, 2026. https://www.smfm.org/
2. Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. Contemporary OB/GYN. Accessed February 9, 2026. https://www.contemporaryobgyn.net/conferences/smfm