Extreme heat at work can double stillbirth – study
This picture taken in February shows how the heat wave, coupled with drought, has destroyed a swamp in Pader District. Working in extreme heat can double the risk of stillbirth and miscarriage for pregnant women, according to new research from India. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- The researchers used what is called the wet-bulb-globe temperature, which measures the effects of temperature, humidity, wind speed, and radiant heat on human bodies.
Working in extreme heat can double the risk of stillbirth and miscarriage for pregnant women, according to new research from India.
The study found that the risks to mothers-to-be are significantly higher than previously thought.
Researchers say hotter summers can affect not only women in tropical climates but also in countries such as the UK.
They want specific health advice for working pregnant women globally.
Eight hundred pregnant women in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu took part in the study, which was started in 2017 by the Faculty of Public Health at the Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research in Chennai.
About half of those who took part worked in jobs where they were exposed to high levels of heat, such as agriculture, brick kilns, and salt flats. The others worked in cooler environments, such as schools and hospitals, although some workers were also exposed to very high levels of heat in those jobs.
There is no universal threshold for what level of heat is considered to be too hot for the human body.
“[The impact of heat] is relative to what you’re used to and what your bodies are used to,’’ says Prof Jane Hirst, one of the scientists, who contributed to the study.
In the lush green fields of Tiruvannamalai, I meet Sumathy, one of the pregnant women who took part.
She removes her thick gloves and stretches out her fingers. She has been picking cucumbers for the past two hours.
“My hands burn in this heat,’’ she tells me, gently caressing her fingertips.
Summer hasn’t even started yet, but already it is about 30 degrees here today and feeling hotter with the humidity.
Sumathy has to protect her hands from the constant stabbing of the tiny spikes on the cucumbers, but the gloves make her sweat profusely.
“My face burns too,’’ she says.
She comes to the cucumber farm before and after her main job, working as a cook in a school, and is paid about 200 rupees or just under £2 (Shs9,849) for her efforts.
Sumathy was one of the first recruits.
Her baby was also one of the first in the study to die.
“I used to feel so exhausted being pregnant and working in the heat,’’ she says.
One day, as Sumathy was dropping off her husband’s lunch, she suddenly started feeling very unwell. That evening, she went to see a doctor who told her she had suffered a miscarriage 12 weeks into her pregnancy.
“My husband would lay me down on his lap and console me. I don’t know what I would have done without him,’’ she says.
Overall, the study found that women who worked in similar conditions as her were twice as likely to suffer a stillbirth or miscarriage as those working in cooler environments.
The pregnant women in the study in India are “at the forefront of experiencing climate change,’’ says Prof Hirst, who is a UK-based consultant obstetrician, and Prof of Global Women’s Health at medical research organisation The George Institute.
The latest findings are particularly stark and worrying, says Prof Hirst, and have wider implications. There is currently no official international advice for pregnant working women in the heat.
