Pregnancy is increasingly becoming a health risk for millions of women as rising temperatures expose expectant mothers and newborns to complications linked to extreme heat.
United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell is expected to warn world leaders that intensifying heat is contributing to premature births, stillbirths, low birth weight and other maternal complications.
Speaking at the pre-COP summit in Nadi, Fiji, Stiell will point to growing evidence that climate-driven heat is creating a new threat to maternal and newborn health.
“Rising temperatures mean rising danger in pregnancy,” he is expected to say.
The warning comes as scientists continue to document increasingly frequent heat records and more intense extreme-weather events linked to climate change.
A survey of 1,000 midwives and doctors from the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Brazil and Zimbabwe found that more than two-thirds had witnessed pregnancy or newborn complications that they associated with extreme heat over the past five years.
The survey, commissioned by the Wellcome charitable foundation, found that nearly all the health professionals interviewed had cared for mothers or babies affected by extreme heat.
About one-third reported seeing low birth weight or restricted growth, feeding difficulties, dehydration and heat-related illness among mothers and babies that they believed were linked to excessive heat.
The findings highlight a growing concern for health systems already struggling to protect mothers and newborns from preventable complications.
Extreme heat can place additional stress on the body during pregnancy, while newborns have limited ability to regulate their body temperature. This can make periods of prolonged heat particularly dangerous for both mothers and babies.
Stiell described the emerging threat as a new “faultline” in the climate crisis, warning that the consequences could deepen existing inequalities.
“The picture is clear and very disturbing,” he is expected to say, noting that climate-driven heat is increasingly affecting pregnancy and childbirth.
The risks are particularly concerning in countries and communities where pregnant women have limited access to cooling, clean water, health facilities and timely maternal care.
Wellcome chairwoman and former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said climate change was placing mothers and babies at increasing risk.
“Extreme heat is an invisible killer, but pregnant women must not be invisible,” Gillard said, urging leaders to act on the available evidence.
The warning comes as countries prepare for COP31, the major United Nations climate conference scheduled to take place in Türkiye next month.
The pre-COP summit in Fiji and Tuvalu is expected to give Pacific nations, many of which are on the frontline of climate change, an opportunity to push maternal health and other human impacts of rising temperatures higher up the global climate agenda.
For maternal-health experts, the growing evidence means climate adaptation can no longer be treated separately from reproductive, maternal and newborn healthcare.
Protecting pregnant women during periods of extreme heat could require stronger heat-health warning systems, better access to water and cooling, public education and greater preparedness among health facilities.
As global temperatures continue to rise, the message emerging from the Pacific is increasingly clear: protecting mothers and newborns from climate change will require health systems to prepare for heat not simply as an environmental problem, but as a growing maternal-health emergency.
