Extreme heat is increasingly entering the delivery room.

Across five countries and five continents, healthcare professionals working with pregnant women and newborns are reporting that rising temperatures are already affecting maternal and newborn health. A new international survey commissioned by Wellcome found that 73% of maternal healthcare professionals reported an increase in heat-related cases or complications affecting pregnant women over the past five years. A similar 76% reported an increase affecting foetal or newborn health.

The survey covered 1,000 healthcare professionals in Australia, Brazil, India, the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe, including obstetricians, gynaecologists, doctors, midwives, nurses and other frontline maternal-health workers.

The warning is not simply theoretical.

Almost every professional surveyed—98%—said they had cared for a pregnant woman whose health they believed had been affected by extreme heat. For newborns, the figure was 99%.

A climate threat inside pregnancy

Pregnancy changes how the body responds to heat. As global temperatures rise and heatwaves become more frequent and intense, exposure can create additional risks for both mother and baby.

Research cited by Wellcome has linked heat exposure with preterm birth, low birth weight, stillbirth and maternal complications. For every 1°C rise in heat exposure, the odds of preterm birth increase by around 5%. Heatwave exposure has also been associated with a 25% higher risk of obstetric complications.

The new survey suggests these risks are already being encountered by frontline healthcare workers.

Almost one in four respondents, 23%, said they had seen pregnancy complications requiring additional monitoring or treatment that they believed were associated with extreme heat.

For newborns, professionals reported dehydration and heat-related illness (36%), low birth weight or restricted growth (34%), and difficulties with feeding, breathing and temperature regulation (33%).

The consequences can extend beyond the body.

When heat makes healthcare harder to reach

A heatwave can make getting to a hospital or clinic difficult, particularly for vulnerable families.

More than a quarter of respondents, 27%, said extreme heat was making it harder for pregnant women and families to travel to or access care. Another 29% reported an increase in urgent or emergency presentations.

That creates a troubling paradox: the conditions increasing the need for healthcare can simultaneously make healthcare harder to reach.

For maternity services, the challenge is therefore not simply keeping pregnant women cool. Hospitals and clinics themselves may need to function safely during prolonged periods of extreme heat.

Health workers say they need help

Healthcare professionals are also warning that health systems are not keeping pace with the changing climate.

92% of respondents said they wanted more training and resources to protect pregnant women during extreme heat, while 55% said clearer national or international guidance would help them provide better care.

The concern is expected to intensify.

More than four in five respondents said they were concerned that extreme heat would pose a growing risk to maternal, foetal and newborn health over the next five years unless further action is taken. Meanwhile, 82% believed policymakers and health-system leaders should give greater priority to protecting pregnant women and babies.

A blind spot in climate policy?

The findings point to a broader question: Are climate policies adequately accounting for pregnancy and newborn health?

Heat-action plans commonly focus on reducing heat exposure across the general population. But pregnant women have specific physiological needs, while newborns are particularly dependent on their surroundings and caregivers for temperature regulation.

Wellcome is calling for pregnant women, new mothers and babies to be explicitly included in national climate and health plans, with specific, funded and accountable measures to protect them from extreme heat.

It also calls for the first WHO clinical guidance specifically addressing heat, pregnancy, and the postpartum period, alongside stronger health surveillance that incorporates heat exposure into monitoring and early-warning systems.

 

Some solutions are already being tested

Adaptation does not necessarily mean waiting for expensive new infrastructure.

Wellcome points to practical interventions being tested in countries including Zimbabwe and South Africa. These include handheld fans, reflective paint on health-facility roofs and community-led climate information systems.

Such measures matter because the climate-health challenge is not distributed equally. Communities already experiencing extreme heat may have fewer resources to adapt, while healthcare facilities themselves can be vulnerable to heat, electricity disruptions and overcrowding.

The survey therefore raises a question that extends well beyond maternity wards: what does climate adaptation look like when the people most at risk are not necessarily the people most visible in climate policy?

Making mothers and babies visible, need of the hour

Julia Gillard, Chair of Wellcome and former Prime Minister of Australia, said: "Healthcare professionals worldwide were already seeing extreme heat affect pregnant women and newborn babies".

She added that "as temperatures continue to rise because of human-caused climate change,  more mothers and babies will be exposed to the risk".

Dr Madeleine Thomson, Wellcome's Head of Climate Impacts and Adaptation, said that "many countries remain inadequately prepared for the health effects of extreme heat, despite solutions already being available".

The survey is limited to the experiences and perceptions of healthcare professionals in five countries, rather than being a global epidemiological assessment. But its message is significant: the people working closest to pregnancy and newborn care are already seeing heat emerge as a health problem.

The climate crisis is often measured in degrees, records and heatwave days.

For a pregnant woman, however, it can be experienced differently: a difficult pregnancy, an emergency admission, a premature birth, or a newborn struggling to regulate its temperature.

As the planet gets hotter, protecting mothers and babies may need to become a core part of climate adaptation, not an afterthought.