Skip to content Skip to search

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/
Sign up for our newsletter

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • Washington, D.C., offers financial relief to local child care workers

        Orion Rummler · September 20
      • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

        Jessica Kutz · May 5
      • Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito argued abortion isn’t an economic issue. But is that true?

        Chabeli Carrazana · May 4
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Can Cheri Beasley build a winning coalition in North Carolina?

        Candice Norwood · October 11
      • Los Angeles has never elected a woman mayor. Karen Bass hopes to change that.

        Nadra Nittle · September 8
      • Judge J. Michelle Childs is confirmed to D.C. appeals court

        Candice Norwood · July 20
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • The 19th Explains: Why the nursing shortage isn’t going away anytime soon

        Mariel Padilla · September 23
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: What we know about Brittney Griner’s case and what it took to get her home

        Candice Norwood, Katherine Gilyard · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why the Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t codify same-sex marriage rights

        Kate Sosin · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why baby formula is still hard to find months after the shortage

        Mariel Padilla · December 1
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • Stepping in after tragedy: How political wives became widow lawmakers

        Mariel Padilla · May 24
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • From ballroom dancing to bloodshed, the older AAPI community grapples with gun control

        Nadra Nittle, Mariel Padilla · January 27
      • 'I'm planning on working until the day I die': Older women voters are worried about the future

        Mariel Padilla · June 3
      • Climate change is forcing care workers to act as first responders

        Jessica Kutz · May 31
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Election workers believe in our system — and want everyone else to, too

        Barbara Rodriguez, Jennifer Gerson · November 8
      • Voter ID laws stand between transgender people, women and the ballot box

        Barbara Rodriguez · October 14
      • Emily’s List expands focus on diverse candidates and voting rights ahead of midterm elections

        Errin Haines · August 30

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • 19th Polling
    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Election 2022
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Politics
    • Press Release
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th News(letter)

News from reporters who represent you and your communities.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Become a member

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

A pregnant mom and her daughter embrace near the ocean.
(Getty Images)

Environment & Climate

The latest climate report includes a new focus on pregnant people. One of its authors explains why.

Heat, air pollution and natural disasters all have been shown to impact maternal and fetal health. Climate and health expert Kristie Ebi says we can take more measures to protect those affected.

Jessica Kutz

Gender, climate and sustainability reporter

Published

2022-03-04 05:00
5:00
March 4, 2022
am

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Last June, over a period of three days, a heat wave baked the Pacific Northwest. Temperatures soared to 117 degrees in a region where many homes don’t have air conditioners. 

While final estimates of heat wave-related fatalities are still being determined, Kristie Ebi, a professor with the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington, said approximately a thousand people are believed to have died from the extreme temperatures. “If anything else happened that in a few days killed 1,000 people, we’d call it a mass casualty event,” Ebi said. But the United States, like other countries, has been slow to mitigate the dangers of extreme heat, and the problem is only going to get worse. 

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, a summary of the most recent climate science, released Monday, reiterated that we can expect these heat waves to become more frequent and intense, exposing more of the population to danger.  

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

The recently released second installment of the report, focused on climate impacts, adaptation and vulnerabilities, included a new section detailing the risks pregnant people face in a changing climate. A growing body of scientific research cited in the report details the ways in which climate-caused events like heat waves and other natural disasters affect maternal and fetal health. In the United States these risks are amplified by socioeconomic and racial disparities, with Black women already experiencing elevated risks of complications during a pregnancy. 

It’s why Illinois Rep. Lauren Underwood, who co-sponsored legislation known as the Momnibus Act, included a bill called the Protecting Moms and Babies Against Climate Change Act. The legislation would fund training for medical professionals to identify risks posed by climate change for pregnant patients and would establish a Consortium on Birth and Climate Change Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Ebi, who was a lead author for the human health chapter of the most recent IPCC report, spoke to The 19th about the growing dangers of extreme heat, the need for more funding to research its implications and how to prevent health impacts in the future.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

As one of the lead authors of the latest IPCC report, can you paint a picture of what rising temperatures will look like here in the United States?

As the climate continues to change, we’re going to see not only increases in the average temperatures but along with that, the summers will be longer, start sooner and go further into the fall. So we’ll see these changes in the averages, but we also know that there will be significant changes in the frequency, intensity and duration of heat waves. The report that covers that for the IPCC came out last August and shows this significant increase in extreme events. We’ll see more events like the heat dome in the Pacific Northwest.

  • More from The 19th
    IPCC vice chairs Thelma Krug and Ko Barrett attend a session at the United Nations.
  • More women than ever are contributing to the next IPCC climate report
  • ‘We all know somebody’: Rep. Lauren Underwood on the fight to stop pregnancy-related deaths
  • Women of color are leading climate justice work. They’re also struggling to find funding.

In the latest IPCC report, it says that women and those who are pregnant are more likely to suffer disproportionately in extreme weather events, like heat waves. Why is that?

Specifically, why women are at higher risk is a very good question. What we know from the epidemiological research is that there are associations between these higher temperatures and low birth weight, stillbirths and other adverse pregnancy outcomes. 

There is research now that’s trying to understand the timing of heat exposure during pregnancy. For example, are there particular trimesters when babies are most at risk when exposed to higher temperatures? Exactly how these mechanisms work are under research. And I’m sure by the next IPCC report [which will come out in the next six to seven years], there’ll be a whole lot more understood about that. 

Then you can also think about other kinds of extreme events like flooding that can reduce access to prenatal care. Depending on where you are in the U.S., you can have deliveries outside of the health care system and have impacts to babies and children because of lack of access to care.

This was the first time there was a section linking maternal health to climate change in the IPCC report. Why is that?

Each assessment report is mandated to be comprehensive, and the number of publications on temperature and adverse pregnancy outcomes has increased significantly in the past few years. The fact that this report highlights this issue is a reflection of where the literature stands. 

It’s much more a reflection of the fact that historically, including today, there is really appallingly low amounts of funding for research in this area. Funding in the NIH for climate change and health has been running at about 0.02 percent to 0.04 percent of their budget. 

President Joe Biden put $110 million for climate change and health into his [proposed] budget, which on the one hand, is a huge increase and on the other hand, is still 0.2 percent of the NIH budget. When you look at the size of the institute’s within NIH, $100 million is nothing. There’s only so much a community can do when you don’t have resources, and that’s human and financial resources. 

A child plays in a fountain.
A child plays in a fountain as a heat wave rolls through the D.C. area. (JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

The report also mentions children’s vulnerability to heat. What do those impacts look like? 

There’s been a lot of work to raise awareness about how many babies die every year untended in cars. Parents don’t understand how fast cars heat up and don’t understand that babies physiologically can’t adjust to that rapid increase in temperature. 

When you think about children, there’s been lots of really interesting work done, for example, by Jennifer Vanos, a climate researcher at Arizona State University, showing how hot playground equipment and tarmac surfaces get. It’s also thinking about, as we have these really hot days, is it safe for children to go out and play when it’s so hot? Children aren’t necessarily great at remembering to drink sufficient fluids. 

Stories by experienced reporters you can trust and relate to.

Delivered directly to your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting…

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

How can we mitigate the threats posed by extreme heat? What can cities do to help those most vulnerable? 

One of the major ways to prevent adverse health impacts of heat waves is heat wave early warning systems. There’s been increasing skill in forecasting heat waves — for the heat dome here, we knew days in advance that we were going to have really high temperatures. But you need to have more than just the forecast. You need to have a whole early warning and response system. There’s several very good ones in the United States and around the world. They are not necessarily difficult, but they require a lot of coordination. 

I think there’s real opportunities with thinking about setting multiple thresholds. For example, if you know that Saturday is going to be really hot but by Thursday the temperatures are going to be higher than normal, we have groups like babies, pregnant women and adults over the age of 65 who would already be at higher risk with those temperatures. So it’s about thinking about setting up tiered systems based on what we understand about who is vulnerable at different thresholds. 

Then with the thresholds, what is it that you do? Who do you need to have at the table? How do you reach out to these different vulnerable groups? You need somebody from EMT, from the fire department, from the police department, who reaches out to the elder care facilities. You can think about reaching out much more broadly to those who are most vulnerable.

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Help sustain what we started

Your monthly investment is critical to our sustainability as a nonprofit newsroom.

Donate Today

Become a member

Up Next

Idaho Governor Brad Little gestures during a press conference.

Abortion

Idaho is the second state to ban abortion after six weeks

The ban, modeled on a Texas law that has survived legal challenges, will take effect in 30 days.

Read the Story

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Search
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram