On the picture: Health personnel prepare premature babies to be transferred to Egypt after they were evacuated from Gaza`s Al-Shifa hospital, at the Emirates Crescent Hospital in Rafah, southern Gaza, 20 November 2023. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, 28 premature infants were transferred on 20 November from the Emirati Hospital to the Rafah Crossing, in coordination with the World Health Organization and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The Egyptian Ministry of Health said the infants would be transferred to receive medical treatment in Egyptian hospitals in Arish and Cairo. EPA/HAITHAM IMAD
A new study has found that exposure to extreme temperatures can affect the birth weight of babies, Euronews reported.
Exposure to cold or heat stress, especially in the later stages of pregnancy, can result in babies being born too big or too small for their gestational age (the estimated date of birth).
Birth weight can affect a child's development and chances of survival. It can also indicate their vulnerability to illness and disease in older age.
How can cold and heat stress affect birth weight?
The study, conducted by researchers at Curtin University of Population Health in Perth, looked at more than 385,000 pregnancies in Western Australia between 2000 and 2015.
Exposure to heat or cold stress was examined using the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI), which describes the physiological comfort of the human body under certain conditions.
Heat exposure from 12 weeks before conception to birth was analyzed to determine whether it affected birth weight.
Of the studied group, 9.8% of the children were born too small, and 9.9% - too large for their gestational age.
Scientists have found that exposure to extreme cold or heat stress during pregnancy increases the risk of abnormal birth weight.
According to scientific experts, this may be because exposure to thermal stress increases dehydration and induces oxidative stress and systemic inflammatory reactions, which can hurt the health of the fetus.
Who is most at risk of heat and cold stress?
Mean biothermal exposure was between 8.1 and 30°C, indicating mild cold stress at the lower end and moderate heat stress at the upper end of the UTCI scale.
The 1% of people most exposed at the top or bottom end of this temperature scale were most likely to experience changes in birth weight.
This is especially true for those exposed to temperature stress in the last stages of pregnancy.
The risk becomes greater for some groups, including people of non-white race, male births, pregnancies in people over age 35, those in rural areas, and those who smoked during pregnancy.
This adds to the growing body of evidence about the threat climate change poses to reproductive health. As heat and cold waves become more frequent, they fuel vector-borne diseases, natural disasters, and resource scarcity, all of which have detrimental effects on health. /BGNES
