India is grappling with a severe heatwave, with many states of the country issuing red and orange heat alerts. While exposure to such extreme temperatures can have a dangerous impact on your health, new research has linked an increase in premature births during hot weather conditions to intense and prolonged heatwaves. A team of researchers, led by researchers from Emory University, University of Nevada Reno, Yale University, University of Utah and the National Center for Atmospheric Research estimated changes in the rate of preterm and early-term birth in response to heatwaves.
A heatwave is a period of extremely high temperatures relative to what is normally expected over a region. Over a 25-year period (1993-2017), the researchers analysed 5.3 million births across the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the US in terms of daily counts of preterm and early-term births to publish its findings in The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open.
So how does heatwave impact pregnancy? Let’s take a closer look Increased heat linked to preterm births During a typical 40-week pregnancy, babies born before the 37-weeks are considered preterm, while those delivered between 37 and 39 weeks are termed early-term births. The researchers found that over the 25-year period, preterm births increased by 2 per cent, while early-term births increased by 1 per cent, following a four consecutive day-period during which each day’s average temperature was among the hottest 2.5 .
