UN climate chief to warn extreme heat is endangering pregnancies and newborns

Extreme heat is placing pregnant women and newborns at increasing risk, UN climate chief Simon Stiell is expected to warn at a climate summit in Fiji on Monday. Stiell will cite a survey indicating that more than two-thirds of health professionals across five continents had seen complications linked to intense heat during the past five years. He is expected to say rising temperatures are increasingly associated with premature birth, stillbirth, low birth weight and maternal complications.

The survey, commissioned by the Wellcome charitable foundation, 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 affected by extreme heat. About one-third said they had seen low birth weight or restricted growth, feeding difficulties, dehydration or heat-related illness that they believed resulted from extreme heat.

Wellcome chairwoman Julia Gillard said mothers and babies were facing increasing risks as a result of climate change and urged leaders to act. The warning comes as scientists say climate change is making extreme weather more intense and heat records more frequent. Thirty-three countries, from western Europe to the Sahel and central America, recorded their hottest July since records began this year, according to an analysis of Copernicus data by AFP.

Stiell will address the pre-COP31 summit in Fiji and Tuvalu, which Pacific leaders view as an opportunity to highlight the effects of climate change on vulnerable communities. The meeting precedes the larger UN climate conference, COP31, due to take place in Turkey next month.