Specialization
Obstetrics
Focus of research
Research interests
Martijn Oudijk, is a professor of obstetrics at the Amsterdam UMC, specialized in prevention and treatment of preterm birth.
He obtained his PhD at 26 years of age at Utrecht University. His PhD research on diagnosis and treatment of fetal tachyarrhythmias was performed in Utrecht, Yale University, New Haven, USA and Göteborg, Sweden. His residency in Obstetrics and Gynaecology was completed at 31 years of age in Utrecht, with a fellowship in Perinatology at the Academic Medical center in Amsterdam. After 6 years of working as a consultant obstetrician in UMC Utrecht, he accepted a position at the Department of Obstetrics in the Academic Medical Center Amsterdam in 2015.
Prof. Oudijk is focused on reducing preterm birth, the most important health problem in modern day obstetrics, by performing large (inter-) national RCT’s aimed at optimizing prevention, diagnosis and treatment of preterm birth.
He was chairman of the Obstetrics board of the Dutch Consortium for Healthcare Evaluation and Research in Obstetrics and Gynecology, from 2013-2024 (Zorgevaluatie Nederland). This internationally renowned research network performs large multicenter clinical RCT’s. Prevention and treatment of preterm birth is an important goal of the Dutch Consortium and a large number of trials have been performed from 2008-2025. As a project member, he was involved in the completed studies on prevention and/or treatment of preterm labour, the APOSTEL I, II and VI, PROTWIN, Triple P and ASB study. He was the principal investigator of several large (inter-)national RCT’s on treatment of preterm labour, the APOSTEL III (RCT comparing the tocolytic drugs nifedipine and atosiban), which was published in The Lancet in 2016, the APOSTEL IV study (RCT comparing nifedipine and placebo in PPROM), the APRIL study (aspirin in the treatment of recurrent preterm birth) and the recently completed international placebo controlled RCT on tocolysis, the APOSTEL 8 study, published in The Lancet in 2025.
He leads the Preterm Birth research group and Preterm Birth clinic with his colleague Prof. E. Pajkrt. In the last decade, he supervised 11 PhD trajectories and currently supervises 7 PhD candidates.
Policy maker
In addition to his research activities, he has been very active as a policy maker within the Dutch Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (NVOG). In 2016, he was chairman of the ‘First national research agenda of the Dutch Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 2017-2020’. From 2018-2024 he served as the chairman of the division of Fetal-Maternal Medicine and as chairman of the Scientific Committee of division of Fetal-Maternal Medicine.
Recently, in 2025 the multidisciplinary National Guideline ‘Prevention of Preterm Birth’ was published, which was chaired by Prof. Oudijk.
In 2025 he was appointed Director of the Amsterdam Reproduction and Development research institute at Amsterdam UMC.
Valorization
Prof. Oudijk is committed to reducing inequalities regarding pregnancy outcomes. Research from the preterm birth group showed that preterm birth rates are highest in deprived neighborhoods, and especially in certain subgroups.
By implementing this knowledge and knowledge on effective treatment interventions in these deprived neighborhoods, with his team, he aims to reduce preterm birth rates Preventie Vroeggeboorte Amsterdam Zuid-Oost