Posts by BORN Ontario

With support from the Public Health Agency of Canada, through the Vaccine Surveillance Reference Group and the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force, BORN is evaluating COVID-19 vaccination in pregnant individuals in Ontario.

Haudensaunee women from Six Nations took the initiative to honour the 215 children  who were buried on the site of what once was Canada's largest Indigenous residential schools. The women placed moccasins and shoes on the steps of the Brantford “Mush Hole.” 

BORN Ontario in partnership with researchers throughout the province will soon be evaluating the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy.

The Provincial Council for Maternal and Child Health (PCMCH) developed VERSION 2 of the COVID-19 information sheet for pregnant or breastfeeding people – “I am pregnant or breastfeeding. Should I get the COVID-19 Vaccine?”

In the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, pregnant individuals in Ontario and across Canada had higher rates of hospitalization and intensive care unit (ICU) admission relative to non-pregnant individuals of similar age.

Ontario has a three-phase vaccination plan, and as of April 23, pregnancy has been further prioritized to the "highest risk" category in phase two of the vaccine roll out. All pregnant individuals in Ontario are now eligible to get vaccinated for COVID-19.  More details will be posted as information becomes available.

2022 will mark ten years since the launch of the Better Outcomes Registry and Network (BORN) Information System.  Since that time, BORN has grown and expanded:  the breadth of our Information System has grown to encompass necessary and important health data for pregnant individuals and children, and our portfolio has expanded to include Prenatal Screening Ontario. 

At BORN, we examined data from all pregnant individuals carrying one fetus (as opposed to twins or triplets etc.) who gave birth in a hospital between fiscal year 2012/13 and 2017/18 for self-reported use of cannabis in pregnancy.

How do you decide if it's right for you? New resources developed by the Provincial Council for Maternal and Child Health (PCMCH) can help you with your decision making process.

BORN is providing aggregated Ontario data to the Canadian Surveillance of COVID-19 in Pregnancy: Epidemiology, Maternal and Infant Outcomes (CANCOVID-Preg) project and contributed to the first national report (Report #1). With only a subset of Canadian data, the report cautiously highlighted increased rates of hospitalizations and ICU admissions among pregnant women diagnosed with COVID-19.