Climate change increases the risk of pregnancy problems: study

Hot heat waves powered by global warming increase the risk of dangerous complications during pregnancy around the world, a report warned on Wednesday.

Performing in extreme heat, while the pregnant woman has previously been linked to a series of problems, including a higher risk of premature birth, mortality, genetic abnormalities and gestational diabetes.

The new report by Central Central’s research team has tried to measure how many pregnant women have been exposed to excessive heat since 2020 and to what extent the climate change is blame.

In 222 of the 247 countries and the territories studied, “the climate change has been doubled at least the average annual number of pregnancy days they have been experiencing in the last five years,” the report said.

The biggest increases were in developing countries where access to healthcare is limited, such as the Caribbean, Central and South America, the Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia and sub -Saharan Africa.

The researchers only examined the rise of potentially dangerous hot days and did not examine the extent to which pregnant women were actually affected by heat in countries.

Ana Bonell, a mother and extreme heat researcher at the London Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that “it gives clear evidence of the increasing risk of exposure to extreme heat”.

Findings could also apply to the elderly, another group that is most at risk during hot periods, he said AFP.

While researchers are increasingly substantiated by many ways in which extreme heat can threaten human health, they remain “many unknown” about normal mechanisms to explain why this is happening, Bonell said.

A large 2024 study in nature medical estimates that thermal waves increase the chances of having 1.25 times pregnancy complications.

In addition to the wider efforts to combat climate change – which is largely caused by people who burn fossil fuels – experts advised local policies to help communities to defeat the heat.

These include “green neighborhoods, restriction of pollution, creating cool areas and informing residents of the dangers,” said French epidemiologist Lucie Adelaide.

In a statement linked to the new report, he also recommended that existing information on the health of thermal waves include warnings of pregnant women, which rarely refer to such efforts.