Mary Donofrio, MD

• PA, MD, Pediatric Cardiology, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, (1995)
• MD, Pediatrics, New York Hospital-Cornell, New York, NY, (1992)
• MD, Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, (1989)
• BA, Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, (1985)

Mary Donofrio, MD, has for her career over the past 30 years, focused on research using fetal echocardiography to investigate cardiac hemodynamic changes and the effects of the altered circulation in fetuses with CHD. She has participated in multiple clinical studies that have used ultrasound imaging to evaluate fetal blood flow and the resultant effects on brain development in children with CHD. Her initial study in this area resulted in publication of a landmark article which was the first to describe that fetuses with complex CHD have significant alterations in cerebral blood flow in mid-late gestation. Her creation of a clinical program at Children’s National to evaluate all high-risk children with CHD for developmental delays and learning disabilities has facilitated multiple research projects and grant funding investigating clinical factors associated with neurodevelopmental outcomes. In addition, she was a co-investigator on a National Health Institute R01 funded grant where fetal echocardiography was used to assess fetal blood flow through the heart and vasculature, including the aorta, to assess the relationship between blood flow and fetal brain development as assessed by fetal MRI in high-risk patients with CHD. She is currently a co-investigator on R01 funded grants investigating the association between fetal BH4 levels and brain injury in neonates with CHD. She is a co-investigator in several multicenter studies, assessing outcomes in fetal tachy and brady arrhythmias and two trials, one investigating treatment algorithms for fetal tachyarrythmias and the other monitoring women at risk for SSA-induced fetal heart block. She has published on multiple topics in fetal cardiology, including the development of a systems approach for specialized delivery room management using a protocol created for babies diagnosed in utero with complex CHD and the use of maternal hyperoxygenation to simulate delivery room physiology in fetuses with CHD. She is the lead author of the 2014 AHA Statement Paper on the “Diagnosis and Treatment of Fetal Cardiac Disease”, co lead of the 2023 American Society of Echocardiography Guidelines and Recommendations for Performance of the Fetal Echocardiogram, and senior cardiology contributor to the recent Call to Action Report on Prioritizing Delivery Room Care for Neonates with Critical Congenital Heart Disease which is being used as a reference for creation of delivery room care protocols for neonatal resuscitation of newborns with congenital heart disease.

Professor of Pediatric Cardiology - George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences