Canada significantly undercounts maternal deaths — doctors are sounding the alarm
According to Statistics Canada, 523 women died from complications of pregnancy or childbirth between 2000 and 2020.
But Canada's count of maternal deaths is so incomplete that Dr. Jocelynn Cook, the chief scientific officer of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada, says no one really knows how many mothers die during pregnancy or in the months after.
She says the true number is probably closer to 800, possibly higher.
She's not alone in her suspicion that Canada undercounts the deaths of mothers. Canada's data is so incomplete that an international report by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and others estimates the country's maternal mortality rate to be as much as 60 per cent higher than what is reported by Statistics Canada.
If those estimates are correct, Canada's maternal mortality rate, while still low by global standards, was in the top third of countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2017 — and was double the rate of other high-income countries such as the Netherlands, Ireland and Japan.
There are a number of reasons the death of a mother might slip through the cracks, Cook explains. Canada's national maternal death count is calculated from death certificates. A death is considered maternal if it has been flagged as either a death of a pregnant woman or a woman in postpartum. But experts told CBC that these forms are routinely filled in incorrectly.
Even what counts as a maternal death is different depending on the province or territory where it happened. Some provinces use WHO's definition of up to 42 days after the end of pregnancy. Others count up to a year postpartum. Others may not count the postpartum period at all.
Only six provinces have mandated maternal death reviews, which means that if a woman dies in the other seven Canadian provinces or territories, her death will not be independently investigated.
"If we don't capture information the same way across systems, if we don't ask the same questions, we're never going to be able to really understand what's happening," said Cook. Read the full story here.