Footnotes

• Contributors NS and GCS both wrote the editorial.

• Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

• Competing interests GCS has received research support from Roche Diagnostics, GSK, Illumina and Sera Prognostics (fetal growth restriction, pre-eclampsia and preterm birth). GCS’s department has received payment from Roche for a talk given by GCS (fetal growth restriction). GCS has been a paid consultant to GSK (preterm birth) and is a member of a Data Monitoring Committee for GSK trials of RSV vaccination in pregnancy. GCS is one of three named inventors on a patent application (PCT/GB2020/053312) filed by Cambridge Enterprise for novel predictive test for fetal growth disorder.

• Provenance and peer review Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.