Severe maternal morbidity in Canada, 1991-2001

Abstract
Background: Although death rates are often used to monitor the quality of health care, in industrialized countries maternal deaths have become rare. Severe maternal morbidity has therefore been proposed as a supplementary indicator for surveillance of the quality of maternity care. Our purpose in this study was to describe severe maternal morbidity in Canada over a 10-year period, among women with or without major pre-existing conditions.