Canada.pr said:
I am going to apply for PR status under CEC in another week. We recently discovered that my wife is pregnant. By the time we are asked to do my medicals, she may be pregnant. Obviously, a pregnant woman cannot undergo all the tests that are prescribed.
Will this be a problem? Will this stop my processing?
I can give you a theoretical answer. I would also try searching this site and the web, since what actually happens isn't always what's supposed to happen...
From the DMP Handbook (
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/pub/dmp-handbook.pdf), the form for the chest X-ray (the only test that poses any issues) says, "If the examinee is pregnant, the film must be full sized, the field size must be strictly limited and there must be abdominal shielding." This implies they
can take a chest X-ray if they take certain precautions, though of course, it would be perfectly reasonable for your wife to consider the radiation an unacceptable risk. The Handbook itself says:
"Should the possibility of pregnancy exist, and after appropriate counselling, the applicant should determine whether she wishes to undergo chest x-ray examination or to defer it. The decision is totally the applicant's and no recommendation should be made by the DMP [Designated Medical Practitioner]. If the applicant declines to undergo a chest x-ray on account of the pregnancy, then a chest x-ray should be obtained and submitted after delivery, even though this will delay the IMA [Immigration Medical Assessment] process. If the applicant elects to undergo an x-ray examination, abdominal shielding must be used."
If you deferred the medical examination, the final approval of your application would be delayed until your wife isn't pregnant, plus the 1-2 months it takes CIC to "notice" that you've done medicals. Since the most recent available processing time is 14 months, and I wouldn't expect this to drop below 9, that's not that long a delay in your case.
Doing the medicals
right now doesn't seem like the best option (even if it is safe to have a chest X-ray at a very early stage of pregnancy; I have no idea), because the result of medicals is only valid for 12 months, and it's possible your application will take longer than 12 months to process. (Though doing medicals early generally speeds up processing.) In case you are interested in doing this, the trick is to write your Client ID from your work permit on the medical forms; that allows CIC to tie the results back to your file. I only know of one person who did such "double early" medicals (usually when we talk about "early medicals", we mean after you receive your AOR, writing the file number from the AOR on the medical forms), but it worked for them.
