Recent study on subsistence farmers in a tropical country has revealed that high temperatures caused by climate change pose grave danger to the foetuses of pregnant farmers.
According to the study, “the foetuses of women working in fields in the Gambia showed concerning rises in heart rates and reductions in the blood flow to the placenta as conditions became hotter.”
In a maiden attempt to establish why foetuses suffer when expectant mothers are stressed by heat, “scientists aim to provide evidence for measures to protect expectant mothers and foetuses, such as growing trees to shade women as well as crops.”
There is, Damian Carrington writes, “already strong evidence that extreme heat leads to increases in stillbirths, premature births and low birth weights but this data is from rich, temperate countries.”
“Around the world, hundreds of millions of people, including mothers, are expected to be exposed to extreme heat, even if the global temperature is kept below the internationally agreed limit of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels,” notes Carrington.
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Dr Ana Bonell, a researcher at Medical Research Council Unit in the Gambia and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: “Our study found that pregnant subsistence farmers commonly experience levels of extreme heat above recommended outdoor working limits, and that this can have significant effects on their health and the health of their babies.”
“What we were very shocked to find was that in 34 per cent of the visits [to the fields], there was this impact on the foetus,” he argued.
Previous studies earlier this year established that: “the climate crisis was damaging the health of foetuses, babies and infants across the world. Scientists discovered increased heat was linked to fast weight gain in babies, which increases the risk of obesity in later life.”
Published in the journal Lancet Planetary Health, the seven-month research involved 92 pregnant subsistence farmers in a rural district of the Gambia. The average air temperature during working hours was 33.5C (92.3F).
Additionally, the researchers established that: “when a measure of heat stress rose by 1C, the risk of foetal distress rose by 17 per cent. It rose by 12 per cent even when the rise in the woman’s temperature and heart rate was accounted for, indicating other factors affecting the foetus. These may include dehydration, low placental blood flow or heat-related inflammation.”
