Extreme heat puts pregnancy and newborns at risk, UN says

Extreme heat is putting pregnant women and newborns at increasing risk, United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell is expected to warn at a pre-COP summit in Nadi, Fiji, on October 5.

Stiell is expected to cite a Wellcome-commissioned survey of 1,000 midwives and doctors in the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Brazil and Zimbabwe. The survey found that more than two thirds of health professionals across five continents had seen complications they linked to intense heat in the past five years.

Stiell is expected to say climate-driven extreme heat during pregnancy is increasingly linked to premature birth, stillbirth, low birth weight and maternal complications.

Wellcome chair Julia Gillard said mothers and babies are being put at increasing risk because of climate change and urged leaders to act.

The survey found nearly all participating midwives and doctors had cared for mothers or babies suffering the effects of extreme heat. About a third said they had seen cases of low birth weight or restricted growth, feeding difficulties, dehydration or heat-related illness that they believed resulted from extreme heat.

AFP analysis of European Union Copernicus climate observatory data found that around 33 countries, from western Europe to the Sahel and Central America, recorded their hottest July since records began this year.

The pre-COP31 summit in Fiji and Tuvalu is intended by Pacific leaders to highlight climate risks before the larger UN-sponsored COP31 summit in Turkey next month.