What causes more and more women to give birth before their date?

Climate change is only getting worse over the last decade and its devastating consequences are becoming more and more apparent. One of the effects concerns the premature birth of women. It turns out that this phenomenon is only getting worse and this has implications for your children

What causes more and more women to give birth before their date?

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The adults are the ones who created the current climate crisis, but the children are the ones who pay, and pay the highest price. A new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change has shown that global warming causes unexpected damages and can directly affect women's pregnancy time and increase the risk of premature birth.

Babies are considered premature when they are born before week 36. However, giving birth between weeks 36 and 40 is still not ideal, as preterm births can cause low birth weight and even cognitive development problems later in life. Many variables can cause a healthy pregnant woman to give birth earlier - one of them, according to the study, is extreme fever.

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To investigate this effect, Professor Alan Barca, of the University of California's Environmental Sustainability Institute, and economist Jasmine Schaller of Claremont McKenna College, analyzed daily temperature and birth rates by counties across the United States, from 1969 to 1988.

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In this dataset spanning two decades, the researchers found that on days when temperatures reached 32.2 degrees Celsius or more, the preterm birth rate per 100,000 women rose by 0.97 compared to dates when the temperature was between 16 and 21 degrees Celsius. A smaller, but still significant, deviation of 0.57 additional births per 100,000 women was recorded on hot but not hot days, ranging from 26.7 to 32.2 ° C.

Does the heat outside precipitate birth? Woman giving birth (Photo: shutterstock)

Birth room (Photo: ShutterStock)

The exact biological mechanism by which heat affects pregnancy is unclear, but there are quite a few theories. One of them argues that fever may put pressure on the cardiovascular system of the mother, causing the body to give birth prematurely. Another possibility is that high temperatures may trigger an increase in the hormone oxytocin, which plays a role both at birth and later in breastfeeding.

"There may even be a third reason," says Barça, "which is sleep loss. Although on a hot day, temperatures drop at night, but they can still be high enough to disrupt sleep, which may be a reason
Important for early birth. "

The effect of the heat on pregnancy was less pronounced in hot areas than in more desert areas, probably because mothers living in these parts of the country were acclimated to high temperatures. Family income can also be an influencer: Higher income means a higher likelihood of home air conditioning.

The problem will only get worse

Obviously, not every preterm birth is the same, and the women in the study gave birth at different time points within the 37 to 40-week time window. However, on average, the researchers calculated that preterm birth caused by a temperature of 32.2 ° C or higher shortened pregnancy time by 6.1 days.

Disturbingly, the problem could only get worse in the future, as climate change has only intensified over the last decade, which means more babies are likely to be born sooner in a warm world.