Sittampalam Shanmugaratnam, or 'S S Ratnam' as he was known, was born in Ceylon on 4 July 1928. His father, Murugesu Sittampalam, was a civil servant in the government of Malaya. His mother was Ratneswari Chellappah. He was educated at the Victoria Institution, Kuala Lumpur, before going to the University of Ceylon to study medicine. After junior posts in Ceylon and Singapore, he went to the United Kingdom to study for the FRCS, and specialised in obstetrics and gynaecology, taking the English, Glasgow and Edinburgh Fellowships, and gaining membership of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. He returned to Singapore, where he gained the MD by thesis and became chairman of the committee for obstetrics and gynaecology at the National University of Singapore, becoming professorial fellow in 1995. He was director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research in Human Reproduction. In 1982 he was awarded the Sima Black Travelling Professorship of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and was made an honorary Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists the following year. He received many honorary awards from South Africa, Japan, Korea, Israel, West Africa, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. He died on 8 June 2001. He had one son and one daughter.