Edited Hansard • Number 200
Thursday, June 6, 2002
Question No. 151—[Hansard Page – 12225]
Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Does the government have any statistics or research about the death rate after a pregnancy, and if so, what is, in the 12 months after the end of a pregnancy, the total death rate by women having an elective abortion compared to women carrying their baby to term?
Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Industry, Lib.):
Statistics Canada has only a limited amount of data and research on the death rate after a pregnancy. Estimates of maternal mortality after pregnancy have been calculated by the Maternal Health Study Group of the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System, which includes staff from Health Canada and Statistics Canada, in two recently published studies in Chronic Diseases in Canada.
Among the 1,939,471 women for whom a pregnancy or birth was known to have occurred during the study period (1988-1992), the authors identified 438 women who died of any cause of death either while pregnant or within 225 days of a registered birth or stillbirth.
Statistics Canada also annually publishes data on deaths and death rates, including maternal mortality, defined as deaths caused by complications of pregnancy, childbirth, and the 42 days following termination of a pregnancy. Of the 329 maternal deaths that occurred from 1979 to 1998, seven deaths had an underlying cause of complications from abortion.
Other than these results, Statistics Canada is unaware of any other data that could shed light on the question posed.