Date: October 5, 2026
Reporter: Emilly Jordan
Black people in Canada face a significantly higher risk of experiencing severe complications during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period than White people, according to a major new national study that researchers say provides some of the clearest evidence yet of racial disparities in maternal health in Canada.
The study, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, examined nearly 1.5 million births between 2012 and 2023, including 108,805 births involving Black people and 1,388,090 involving White people. Researchers linked information from Canada's 2021 long-form Census with national birth, hospitalization, immigration and tax databases covering every province and territory except Quebec.
Researchers found that severe maternal morbidity occurred at a rate of 47.8 cases per 1,000 births among Black people, compared with 27.7 cases per 1,000 among White people. After accounting for differences in demographic and clinical characteristics, Black people still had a 66 per cent higher risk of experiencing severe maternal morbidity.
Severe maternal morbidity refers to serious, potentially life-threatening complications associated with pregnancy, labour, delivery or the period following childbirth. These can include conditions such as preeclampsia, severe bleeding, infections including sepsis, heart complications, uterine rupture and kidney failure.
The researchers found that the disparity remained across the different categories of severe maternal morbidity examined. The results also remained consistent after researchers excluded people with conditions such as preeclampsia-related illnesses, sickle cell disease and HIV, which can occur at different rates among Black and White populations and might otherwise have influenced the results.
Income and immigration status also did not account for the difference. Black people experienced higher rates of severe maternal morbidity across income levels and among both immigrants and people who were not immigrants.
The findings add to a growing body of Canadian research showing racial differences in maternal and newborn health outcomes. A recent scoping review found evidence of disparities involving conditions including preeclampsia and gestational diabetes, as well as higher rates of several adverse newborn outcomes among Black families. However, the review also found that Canadian research in this area remains limited, with only six epidemiological studies meeting its criteria and most relying on provincial data, particularly from Ontario.
Researchers and advocates have argued that the lack of comprehensive race-based health data in Canada has made it difficult to measure the extent of these disparities and understand their causes.
The new national study represents an important step because it uses linked population-level information to examine outcomes across a much larger group of births. Still, the researchers said the findings should not be interpreted as demonstrating that race itself causes poorer maternal outcomes.
Instead, health researchers have increasingly examined the effects of social conditions, access to care, discrimination and systemic barriers that can affect health before and during pregnancy.
Research involving Black women in Canada has documented concerns about the quality of maternity care and experiences of racism in healthcare settings. A 2023 study of Black women in Toronto found that participants described some maternity-care experiences as dehumanizing and lacking in quality. Participants identified improved training and greater representation of Black healthcare professionals as potential ways to address problems associated with obstetric racism.
The issue extends beyond severe complications during delivery. Statistics Canada reported earlier this year that singleton preterm births occurred at a rate of 6.3 per cent among Black mothers between 2016 and 2021, compared with 5.5 per cent among non-racialized, non-Indigenous mothers. Statistics Canada also found that all racialized groups examined had higher proportions of extremely and very preterm singleton births than the non-racialized, non-Indigenous group.
For advocates working on Black maternal health, the new findings provide evidence that longstanding concerns about disparities cannot be dismissed as isolated experiences.
Cheyenne Scarlett, co-founder of the Black Birth Project, told CBC News that the study provides important evidence after years of calls for better data on Black maternal health. She also described her own experience seeking emergency care for an ectopic pregnancy and said she was sent home without receiving what she believed was appropriate treatment. Her account is a personal experience and does not establish that the same circumstances apply broadly across Canadian healthcare.
Healthcare researchers say better race-disaggregated information could help identify where disparities are occurring and allow governments and healthcare institutions to develop more targeted interventions.
A previous Canadian review similarly concluded that the limited collection of race-based health information has made it difficult to understand and address disparities in maternal and newborn health. The researchers argued that consistent, patient-centred collection of race-based data could help identify structural barriers and inform policies aimed at improving outcomes.
The latest study does not provide a single explanation for the 66 per cent difference in severe maternal morbidity. Rather, it establishes the scale of the disparity after researchers accounted for a range of measurable factors.
The findings are likely to intensify calls for Canadian governments, hospitals and healthcare organizations to improve the collection and use of race-based health information, strengthen culturally safe maternity services and investigate how systemic barriers may contribute to differences in maternal outcomes.
For Black families across Canada, the researchers' findings highlight a significant health disparity that has previously been difficult to quantify at the national level. The study provides new evidence that the differences in maternal health outcomes are measurable across a large population and that socioeconomic and immigration differences alone do not explain them.