£17m for global research into climate change and maternal and child health

Wellcome has awarded £17m to 9 different research projects around the world to investigate how extreme heat is impacting maternal and child health. 

Significant progress has been made in improving maternal and new-born health outcomes in recent decades, but this is now at risk of being undone due to climate change as global temperatures continue to rise. 

Exposure to excessive heat during pregnancy has been linked to outcomes including premature birth, low birth weight and severe maternal illness, with both mother and child often affected. However, there are significant gaps in our understanding of how and why heat affects pregnant women and importantly, what can be done to help.

To help bridge this gap, Wellcome is funding research across different regions, countries and communities to help improve our understanding. These include: 

• A research team led by Dr Jane Hirst (University of Oxford, UK) studying the response of pregnant women to extreme heat, capturing lived experiences to identify opportunities for local heat adaptation and observing how the foetal heart rate changes with heat exposure.
• Professors Adrienne Gordon and Ollie Jay (University of Sydney, Australia) leading a project to determine heat associated risks for women throughout pregnancy. They will use a climate chamber study in Sydney and a pregnancy cohort study in collaboration with researchers in India and Bangladesh to better understand the health outcomes for pregnant women
•  Professor Andrew Prentice (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK) and his group looking at how heat affects sleep quality, the structure and function of the placenta, pregnancy outcomes and newborn neurological function. 

If current global warming trends continue, 500 million people will be exposed to extreme heat for at least one month each year by 2030. Some groups – including pregnant women - are particularly affected, and many will be unable to change or adapt their environment.  

Yet, research to date has often used modelling for the impacts of extreme temperatures which is based on healthy, young men, whose body composition varies meaningfully from that of pregnant women. 

Madeleine Thomson, Head of Climate Impacts and Adaptation at Wellcome, said:
"We’re seeing climate change affect health in all countries as temperatures rise. Some groups, such as pregnant women, will be more at risk.
“There are significant gaps in our understanding of how and why and what can be done to help. Without this knowledge, we won’t be able to put protections in place that expectant mothers need.”

ENDS
Wellcome has awarded £17,016,655 across 9 research projects to investigate the biological vulnerability to extreme heat in maternal and child health. You can find more details about these projects here and about our climate and health work here.