UN climate chief warns extreme heat endangers pregnant women and newborns

Extreme heat is becoming a potentially fatal threat to pregnant women and newborns, United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell said Monday at a preparatory meeting in Fiji ahead of the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31).

Stiell called heat "a new faultline in the global climate crisis" and said pregnancy is increasingly becoming "a time of anxiety." The risks are sharpest in poorer regions, where women often work outdoors, live in poorly insulated housing and travel long distances to reach equipped clinics.

His warning came as Wellcome, the British health research foundation, released a survey of 1,000 maternal health professionals in Australia, Brazil, India, the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe. About three-quarters said heat-related cases affecting pregnant women and newborns had risen over the past five years. Research links heat exposure to preterm birth, low birth weight and stillbirth: each 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature raises the odds of preterm birth by about 5%.

"No woman should have to fear that extreme heat will harm the baby she is carrying," said Julia Gillard, Wellcome's chair and a former Australian prime minister.

Wellcome urged governments to include pregnant women, new mothers and babies in national climate and health plans with funded heat protection, and called on the World Health Organization (WHO) to issue clinical guidance on heat and pregnancy. The International Confederation of Midwives, which represents more than 2 million midwives, said they must have a role in national adaptation planning.

This brief is based on reporting by Megan Rowling, published Oct. 5, 2026, in Climate Home News. Read the original: https://www.climatechangenews.com/2026/10/05/at-pre-cop-un-climate-chief-warns-of-heat-threat-to-mothers-and-babies/