Heat waves are dangerous during pregnancy, but doctors don’t often mention it

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Living California’s Central Valley, Keishell Brown and other expecting moms contend with increasingly intense heat waves.

Lauren Sommer/NPR

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Lauren Sommer/NPR

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With many paved surfaces, Fresno, Calif. is often hotter than surrounding areas. Wildfire smoke has also hurt air quality.

Bloomberg via Getty Images

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Bloomberg via Getty Images

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«It was actually shocking to see all women were at increased risk, she says. «If there’s increased heat exposure, there’s increased risk of preterm delivery regardless of race, regardless of maternal age.

However, for Black mothers, the risk is almost double, which other research found as well.

«Really what we think is that with heat exposure, dehydration is really the root cause, Basu says. Dehydration causes hormonal changes, which «gives a message to a mother to deliver an infant. The blood flow in the uterus decreases.

As the climate gets hotter, heat waves are expected to become dramatically more common. At 5 degrees Fahrenheit of warming, an extreme heat wave that’s considered a 1-in-50 year event could happen 27 times more often.

When infants are born before 37 weeks of gestation, they’re at increased risk for developmental, respiratory or heart problems, some which can persist throughout their lives. Being exposed to heat and air pollution is also linked to increased risk of stillbirth and low birth weight. A study from Stanford University found that between 2007-2012, exposure to wildfire smoke was connected to as many as 7,000 preterm births in California.

OB-GYNs urged to talk about heat waves

Many OB-GYNs hear from women experiencing preliminary, and ultimately temporary, contractions during heat waves. But patients often aren’t warned ahead of time about the dangers of heat.

«More needs to be done in terms of training a whole generation of women’s health providers that we should be talking about this not just as problems come up but routinely and prophylactically, says Dr. DeNicola of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

In July, ACOG released new clinical guidance about heat and environmental risks for doctors, advising them «that climate change is an urgent women’s health concern as well as a major public health challenge.

Still, clinical guidance can take more than a decade to be widely implemented by providers. The COVID-19 sped up that timeline in some cases, but the warming climate isn’t nearly as top of mind inside a doctor’s office. This summer, the world’s top medical journals identified climate change as the «greatest threat to public health.

«I would say the climate crisis, while it’s not yet seen in the same kind of urgency as the global pandemic with Covid 19 was, it’s every bit as urgent, Dr. DeNicola says.