A 23-year-old Montreal woman who contracted swine flu in June, and had to have her baby by caesarean section, died Thursday night without ever seeing her new son.

Fatiha Idrissi went to the emergency ward at Montreal's Sainte-Justine Hospital with a high fever when she was 38 weeks pregnant, according to her husband, Mohamed Idrissi.

She was admitted to the hospital and two days later developed pneumonia, he said, whereupon doctors decided to transfer her to Sacré-Coeur Hospital.

He said it was then they were told Fatiha was infected with the H1N1 virus and would have to have an emergency C-section.

The baby was immediately transferred to the Montreal Children's Hospital because doctors were worried he also had swine flu, Idrissi said.

He said he never got to speak to his wife again after the C-section because she was kept heavily sedated.

Idrissi said his son, Yassine, did not have swine flu and is now home and healthy.