Extreme heat constitutes fatal threat to pregnant women, newborns – UN climate chief

The United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary, Simon Stiell, has raised the alarm over the growing danger of extreme heat to pregnant women and newborns, warning that maternal health has become a new and potentially fatal fault line in the global climate crisis.

He gave the warning Monday in Fiji at the high-level event, “Birthright! A Global Call to Action to Protect Pregnant Women from Global Heating,” held on the sidelines of the Pacific Pre-COP31 meeting of ministers and delegates.

He said the impacts of climate change are no longer distant projections, especially for Pacific Island communities where extreme heat is disrupting homes, farms, clinics, and access to healthcare, food, water and electricity.

“The climate policy process is measured in degrees, targets and finance. But a deep test of climate action is far simpler: we protect life at its most fragile,” he said.

Stiell noted that the world is now living in a “new, hotter world” driven by continued burning of fossil fuels, with the consequences increasingly showing up in maternity wards.

He warned that rising temperatures are now directly linked to premature births, stillbirths, low birth weight and severe maternal complications.

Citing a new welcome-commissioned global survey of maternal health professionals across five countries and five continents, Stiell described the findings as compelling and deeply worrying.

The survey stated that 73% of health professionals reported an increase in heat-related maternal health cases in the last five years, while 81% expressed concern that extreme heat will pose greater risks to maternal, fetal and newborn health without urgent action.

The survey further stated that 98% of respondents had treated a pregnant woman and 99% had treated a newborn whose health condition was linked to extreme heat.

Stiell said behind the figures are real stories of pregnant women unable to reach hospitals under scorching heat, midwives working in unsafe temperatures, and newborns requiring emergency care unavailable in vulnerable settings.

“The picture is clear and very disturbing: as extreme heat worsens, pregnancy and birth are now a new fault line in the global climate crisis, and one which is potentially fatal,” he stated.