• Posted March 17, 2026

New Moms Need Weeks Of Monitoring To Catch Post-Pregnancy Complications, Study Argues

New mothers need to be monitored weeks after delivery for pregnancy complications, a new study suggests.

About 40% of pregnancy complications would have been missed had doctors not kept tabs on new moms for six weeks following delivery, researchers reported March 16 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Typically, health workers focus on the health of expecting women during gestation and delivery, researchers said in background notes. It’s less common for follow-up visits after delivery to focus on a woman’s health, rather than that of her child.

“Severe maternal complications aren’t just a delivery room issue — they occur across pregnancy and after birth, and many first appear in emergency departments rather than obstetric units,” senior researcher Giulia Muraca, a perinatal epidemiologist and associate professor at McMaster University in Canada, said in a news release.

For the new study, researchers looked at nearly 1.1 million births from 20 weeks’ gestation that occurred in Ontario between April 2012 and March 2021.

The rate of severe complications was a little more than 27 for every 1,000 births.

Hemorrhage, preeclampsia and sepsis were the most common overall, researchers found. Sepsis was the most common postpartum, accounting for half of all complications following delivery.

About 16% of complications occurred during the prenatal period; 55% during labor and delivery; and 29% in the six weeks following delivery.

Researchers estimated that about 40% of complications during the six weeks after delivery would be missed if doctors weren’t keeping an eye on the new mother.

Previous research has shown that most maternal deaths occur outside labor and delivery – about 47% during pregnancy and 46% postpartum, researchers noted.

“Our findings, combined with the knowledge that most maternal deaths do not occur during delivery, highlight that focusing only on the intrapartum period will not adequately serve to recognize, prevent or respond to pregnancy complications," the researchers wrote in their paper.

“As a result, outpatient surveillance to identify and prevent maternal sepsis is warranted, such as postpartum home monitoring (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure) for individuals at increased risk,” the researchers concluded.

More information

The Mayo Clinic has more on postpartum pregnancy complications.

SOURCE: McMaster University, news release, March 16, 2026