Dr. Hamisu Salihu

Obese women are 40 percent more likely than normal-weight or overweight women to have their pregnancies end in stillbirth, according to a study in the the current issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. The risk of losing a baby relatively late in pregnancy is even higher for extremely obese black women, reported the study’s lead author Hamisu Salihu, MD, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology at the USF College of Public Health.

A 2001 PhD graduate of the USF College of Public Health, Dr. Salihu recently returned to the college as a faculty member after spending several years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s School of Public Health. At UAB, he was assistant professor in the Department of Maternal and Child Health.

Dr. Salihu’s most recent study on stillbirth risk has received widespread media coverage. The perinatal epidemiologist has also studied the risk of stillbirth following Cesarean delivery, and stillbirths and infant deaths linked with smoking by older mothers.