Signing the Statement of Live Birth and Providing the Infant Health Card

The Statement of Live Birth, Form 1, is typically signed and submitted by any registered care provider who attends a birth, in home or hospital. This is governed by the Vital Statistics Act which says, “a person who attends at the birth of a child in Ontario shall give notice of the birth." If the birth of the baby and placenta is unattended, the Office of the Registrar General states that the Statement of Live Birth should not be completed.

The newborn health card form ("pre-assigned health number" or "PAHN") is issued by Service Ontario to birthing hospitals in Ontario, who provide the form to eligible newborns born in hospital and to midwives with privileges for issuance at home births they attend. The form must be completed and provided to parents before they leave the hospital, or in the case of home birth, before the midwife leaves the birth location.

A family who has had an unattended birth will not have had a registered birth attendant present to complete the Form 1 or to provide a pre-assigned health number form. In this case, midwives should not complete these forms and instead can provide a letter for the parents to bring to Service Ontario. The letter should be on practice letterhead, stating facts such as the parent was pregnant, appears clinically to have recently given birth, the birth was not attended by a registered provider and the baby appears to be newborn.

Please contact the AOM's Risk Management team (login required) with any specific questions.