Birth alert

Birth alerts (or hospital alerts) are a practice in Canada, in which a social or health care worker notifies the staff of a hospital if they have concerns for the safety of an expected child based on their parents' history. This can include past instances of poverty, domestic violence, drug usage, and history with child welfare. Birth alerts are typically issued without the parents' consent, and often result in apprehension and placement of the child into foster care after birth.

Birth alerts have been considered a controversial practice, as they have been disproportionately used for Indigenous children. The Indigenous rights group Idle No More considers birth alerts to be one of the major "hardships" faced by Canada's Indigenous community. In June 2019, the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) recommended the abolishment of "the practice of targeting and apprehending infants (hospital alerts or birth alerts) from Indigenous mothers right after they give birth", as they were "racist and discriminatory and are a gross violation of the rights of the child, the mother, and the community."

Following the release of the report, the practice of birth alerts was discontinued in multiple provinces in the years that followed. As of December 2021, the only remaining province to practice this was Quebec.