Researchers make concerning new discovery about growing threat to infant development: 'These findings must spur action'

As scorching heat waves and other extreme weather events become more and more frequent, scientists are revealing impacts of climate change that we never would have expected.

What's happening?

A study published in October in The Lancet Planetary Health found that heat stress could impact an infant's development before birth: A mother subjected to heat stress has a higher chance of delivering a baby of low birth weight — less than about 5.5 pounds, as defined by UNICEF.

"These findings build on previous evidence showing that the first trimester is a vulnerable time to heat exposure," explained Dr. Ana Bonell, an assistant professor with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the study's lead author, in a statement.

And the consequences of heat-related stress do not stop at birth.

Per HealthDay News, the researchers collected data between 2010 and 2015 for 668 infants and their mothers living in Gambia, West Africa. During that time, the subjects were exposed to an overall average temperature of nearly 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius).

They showed that growing infants who are regularly exposed to heat stress could experience stunted growth. Then, at the age of one, they were also more likely to weigh less than expected for their height and age than those exposed to 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius).

Why are those findings concerning?

It is not news that pregnant women have to take additional precautions to ensure the well-being of their babies and themselves. Now, the climate is changing, and their vulnerability is increasing.

"It's likely that heat stress may impact appetite, food intake and availability," Bonell pointed out, as quoted by HealthDay News. "We're also already looking into whether there may be direct effects on cellular and inflammatory pathways, adding to the already reduced capacity of pregnant mothers and infants to regulate their own body temperature," she added.

Evidence that climate imbalance and its manifestations, like warmer temperatures or air pollution, continue to pile up as scientists dig into what will be a gloomy future if we do not reduce emissions and restore the planet's natural life support systems.

As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reminds us, "Climate change affects the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink." Respiratory and cardiovascular diseases have become more common, as well as food- and water-borne illnesses.

Some individuals are more vulnerable than others.

What's being done to reduce such impacts?

"We need to explore which populations are projected to experience heat stress the most and where growth faltering may be being recorded, to enable us to develop effective public health measures," Bonell flagged. "With global rates of child wasting remaining unacceptably high and ongoing planetary warming, these findings must spur action on improving child health."

According to Europe's Copernicus Climate Change Service, it is "virtually certain" that 2024 will be the warmest year on record.

Governments are striving to develop appropriate policies to cool the Earth, starting with curtailing our reliance on the burning of fossil fuels in aid of renewable, cleaner sources of energy, but progress remains slow.

Tax credits and rebates offered via the Inflation Reduction Act, deemed the largest climate package in U.S. history, enable homeowners to upgrade their houses with energy-efficient equipment such as heat pumps — and to electrify their appliances at a lower cost.

Some analysts warn of changes in certain tax credit provisions that have not been approved yet, but they do not expect a full repeal of the IRA under Donald Trump.

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