Ottawa’s André B. Lalonde appointed to Order of Canada, honoured for transforming maternity care

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André B. Lalonde has helped change the trajectory of women’s maternity care across Canada and worldwide, and for that work reshaping hospital rooms over the past 54 years he’s being appointed to the Order of Canada.

He said he was shocked when he received the phone call. “I thought they had the wrong number,” he said, laughing.

Lalonde has worked as a gynecologist and obstetrician his whole medical career, inspired to take on the field of maternity after a bad experience during his first child’s birth. He wanted the process to be for the whole family, not just for the baby.

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“How can we have just a baby-friendly hospital and not a woman-friendly hospital or a family-friendly hospital?” Lalonde said. “So that’s what I started to promote and we developed this initiative, which is now in about 30 countries.”

Early in his career, Lalonde highlighted the need for midwives in hospitals as he felt they understood the adequate care women needed. Midwives from Europe, mainly Scotland and England, had a personalized perspective of birth, he explained.

Over five decades he has worked in hospitals across Canada and abroad, lowering fatality rates in places such as Africa, Latin America and Asia. He is the founder of Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, which brings partners together and provides support for changes in policies, funding and services.

Despite retiring, Lalonde continues to work on improving Canada’s medical-care system. In 2020, he brought birthing back to a Cree community in Quebec. It was a highlight in his career, he said, as many of those women previously had to leave the community for six to eight weeks before birth in order to have their babies at a hospital.

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“About 25 years ago, the medical world, including me, said that we should not have small hospitals for births, that we should all regionalize birthing throughout Canada,” he said, but, after visiting Cree communities in Quebec, he realized how unrealistic it was to expect women to travel far outside their communities to give birth.

Often the women had to be by themselves at these faraway hospitals, he said. “By bringing birth back to their community, we’ve given them the power to change their care.”

Lalonde recently worked for the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics, where he developed guidelines for treating postpartum hemorrhage to reduce maternal mortality, part of his continuing efforts and advocacy for women’s maternity care, even at age 81.

“I’ve literally taken care of thousands of women here in Canada and abroad,” he said. “I feel very honored to be considered because my whole life I’ve devoted myself to making life better for women having children in Canada and internationally.”

Three other Ottawa residents were included in the Order of Canada appointments announced Wednesday:

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• Maureen Boyd: communicator, connector and community builder who served as chair of the Parliamentary Centre and supported immigrant and Indigenous families as founding chair of the Mothers Matter Centre.
• Jean-Pierre Kingsley: former chief electoral officer who helped modernize Canada’s voting system and strengthened the integrity of the electoral process and also worked to promote democratic development and improve elections around the world.
• Wendy Muckle: co-founder of Ottawa Inner City Health whose innovative programs, including hospice and trauma-informed care, “gained national and global recognition and are emulated around the world.”

The governor general’s office announced 88 new appointments to the Order of Canada on Wednesday, including one Companion, 24 Officers and 63 Members. Three appointments involved promotions within the Order.

With files from Postmedia staff

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