The World Health Organization (WHO), along with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), UNICEF, and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), have presented the first global framework aimed at analyzing how extreme heat affects the health of pregnant women, newborns, and the child population.
As detailed by the WHO, this new framework sets a set of indicators that States can use to closely monitor the impact of rising temperatures on some of the most vulnerable groups and, from there, strengthen preparedness and response measures.
Research shows that exposure to episodes of extreme heat can compromise health from gestation, increasing the risk of preterm birth by 26 percent. In 2024, children under one year old were subjected to 389 percent more days of heatwave compared to the period between 1986 and 2005. Furthermore, it is estimated that, worldwide, 1.5 billion children are exposed to increasingly frequent, prolonged, and severe heatwaves.
The interim director of the Department of Environment, Climate Change, 'One Health', and Migration of the WHO, Bruce Gordon, has emphasized that health systems need data to size these risks and respond adequately, with actions ranging from protection against heatwaves to incorporating climate risk into the planning and provision of health services.
The new guidelines propose monitoring parameters such as preterm births, stillbirths, low birth weight, gestational hypertension, infant mortality, consultations in health centers during episodes of extreme heat, and school attendance.
"Heat is already affecting our most vulnerable populations, including pregnant women, newborns, and children. But what health systems do not account for, they cannot respond to," stated the director of the Department of Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health and Aging of the WHO, Pascale Allotey.
The combination of routine health data with information on heat exposure, such as air temperature, can serve to detect possible heat-related signals, so that countries identify unusual changes during periods of extreme heat and can undertake further investigations.
The WHO has emphasized the urgency of implementing concrete actions, including the adaptation of health facilities to cope with increased demand, the strengthening of warnings directed at pregnant women and their families, the identification of communities with greater vulnerability, and the improvement of health planning in the face of heat waves.
The organization has also called on all countries to design and implement heat-related health action plans tailored to each reality, which incorporate the needs of these especially exposed groups, strengthen early warning systems, and activate timely measures when risks associated with heat are detected.