Extreme Heat Raises Risks For Pregnant Women, Newborns, UN Climate Chief Warns

Extreme heat is putting pregnant women and newborn babies at growing risk, United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell is expected to warn at the pre-COP31 summit in Fiji on Monday.

Speaking in Nadi, Fiji, Stiell will cite a new survey showing that more than two-thirds of health professionals across five continents have witnessed pregnancy or newborn complications linked to extreme heat over the past five years.

“Rising temperatures mean rising danger in pregnancy,” Stiell is expected to say, highlighting growing links between climate-driven heat and premature births, stillbirths, low birth weight and maternal complications.

He is also expected to warn that extreme heat is creating a new and potentially deadly “faultline” in the global climate crisis, with poorer and more vulnerable communities likely to bear a disproportionate burden.

Extreme Heat Linked To Pregnancy Complications

Scientists have warned that climate change is intensifying extreme weather events and contributing to more frequent temperature records.

According to an AFP analysis of data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, around 33 countries stretching from western Europe to the Sahel and Central America recorded their hottest July since records began this year.

The survey, commissioned by the charitable foundation Wellcome, questioned 1,000 midwives and doctors in the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Brazil and Zimbabwe.

Nearly all respondents said they had cared for mothers or babies experiencing the effects of extreme heat.

Around one-third reported seeing cases of low birth weight or restricted growth, feeding difficulties, dehydration and heat-related illness that they believed were caused by extreme heat.

Julia Gillard Calls For Action

Wellcome chairwoman and former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said climate change is increasingly putting mothers and babies at risk.

“Extreme heat is an invisible killer, but pregnant women must not be invisible,” Gillard said, urging world leaders to act on the available evidence.

Stiell will tell delegates that pregnancy should be a time of hope, but that for millions of women, climate impacts are turning it into a period of growing anxiety and risk.

Pacific Nations Highlight Climate Vulnerability

The pre-COP31 meetings in Fiji and the remote Pacific island nation of Tuvalu are being used by Pacific leaders to highlight the challenges faced by communities on the frontline of climate change.

The meetings are being held ahead of the larger United Nations-backed COP31 climate summit, scheduled to take place next month in Türkiye.