now could working in extreme heat
increase women’s risk of miscarriage and
still birth well as our planet heats up
a new study in India shared with the BBC
has found women face twice the risk of
miscarriage still birth pre-term birth
and low birth weight if they were
working in very hot environments
compared to those in cooler workplaces
India is one of the Count’s most exposed
and vulnerable to heat and let’s put it
all into some context for you now
because over the past five decades India
has experienced more than 700 Heatwave
events which has killed at least 177,000
people climate experts say that India’s
extreme heat events could cross the
survivability limit by 2050 researchers
are now working with Scientists in the
UK to better understand how extreme heat
could have an impact on advice for
pregnant women globally the BBC’s Global
Health correspondent chulip Mazuma has
been to the state of Tamil Nadu to meet
some of the women who took part in in
the
study summer is
coming and India is predicted to become
one of the first countries where
temperatures will Top the safe limit for
healthy people who are just sitting out
in the
shade it’s workers like these who will
be and already are most affected by the
heat these workers start early in the
morning to avoid the worst of the hot
sun it’s around 28° at the moment and
very humid hum I’ve been sweating quite
a lot all
morning this is just one of three jobs
Sandia has to help feed her two
children there was also a third child
who she lost 6 months into her
pregnancy I would work the whole day in
the heat my legs would swell I felt
thirsty all the time and out of breath
one day I was cutting the crops I
suddenly felt intense pain and I started
bleeding I went to see the doctor and he
told me my baby had
died most of us women who have
miscarriages never find out why their
babies died but do you think that
working out in the heat could have had
anything to do with it I think so I
think standing in the heat for hours
could have had an impact Sandia is one
of hundreds of pregnant women who took
part in a study about the Imp Act of
heat stress at work on
pregnancy 800 pregnant women took part
researchers found that those who worked
in extreme heat faced double the risk of
still birth pre-term birth miscarriage
and low birth
weight the study took into account the
heavy workload but they still found that
heat was a key risk
factor throughout their 5year study the
researchers would set up this
temperature engage in women’s workplaces
quite it is uh high right now it
measures the various ways heat affects
our bodies there is a long way to go to
in order to find the exact biological
mechanism behind this that may helps to
uh improve the reproductive health of
the women
globally much of the power to protect
these low paid workers rests with the
bosses of these types of workplaces
thank you for inviting us here the owner
of this brick h on the outskirts of
chenai says he’s adapting to more
frequent hotter Days by providing
additional shade for his workers and
before this was all open so the sun
would just be on the workers making
these and other changes he says is also
making him more
money women no longer have to toil Under
the Sun this kind of work can be very
difficult for them they used to have
more health problems but since we
started using the machinery and got
these sheds they don’t suffer as
much this kind of work mainly undertaken
by women is only going to get harder as
our planet heats up and scientists
investigating the impact on the most
vulnerable warn the world must adapt now
tulet Ma zumar BBC News Southern
India let’s go live to Professor Jane
Hurst she’s chair in global Women’s
Health at the George Institute for
Global Health at Imperial College London
Jane what is it about the heat that
researchers think adversely affects
pregnant women’s bodies in often
devastating
ways thanks for the question that’s a
really good question and that’s actually
what we’re trying to explore at the
moment um by Looking In detail at
whether the heat is affecting the
mother’s blood flow to the uterus and to
the womb and whether that’s affecting
the baby adversely we know from other
work in The Gambia that there are
changes in the B’s heart rate when the
mother’s exposed to heat but we’re still
unclear of the exact mechanisms by which
being exposed to heat leads to these
poor outcomes in women and people
listening to this will be wondering what
type of heat we’re talking about what
level of temperature is it around 28° C
from from from what I understand and is
that considered a high risk above that
or does it depend on humidity what
should people be looking out
for yeah it depends a lot on the the
Ambient Air Temperature as you say the
humidity but also the level of work
which the woman is engaging in and her
clothing and also her a climatization to
heat so unfortunately there’s no simple
threshold of you you know Above This
temperature it’s safe and below this
temperature below this temperature it’s
safe and above this temperature it’s not
um it’s a little bit more complicated
than that and that’s another thing which
we’re trying to work out the current
thresholds for safe working are actually
determined of uh working men uh 70
kilogram men in the United States and
you can imagine especially for these
workers in India uh you know th those
measurements are probably not going to
be very relevant to their their body
functioning and physiology so um we are
trying to to work out some more
particular recommendations that can help
help women practically yeah there are
limits aren’t there to working
conditions but famously in Spain in the
in the UAE are these always for working
outside or or is it for indoor work as
well it’s important that they’re also
for indoor work if the indoor workers
are exposed to heat so uh in the India
study uh chulip mentioned there were
there were brick Kil workers but there
were also people working in bakeries and
other um other indoor environments where
they can be quite extreme heat and of
course women in the home place are often
the ones in the kitchen um cooking and
if that’s inclosed area uh where there’s
no uh way for heat to escape you know
potentially that could be be RIS for
people we we’re witnessing temperature
rises around the globe obviously we’re
focusing on India at the moment but
what’s being done elsewhere to measure
the risks and and warn people about
them yeah there there’s a increasing
recognition globally that the effects of
climate change and not gender neutral
and pregnant women are really at the
front line of experiencing these adverse
effects so uh the welcome trust have
recently funded 10 large projects around
the world to explore this issue in more
detail and the India team is is one
example where we’ll be taking this
forward but people are looking at this
in Australia in Africa um and and in in
in many other places around the world I
mean I think what’s important is to to
realize that this isn’t an issue which
is affecting everyone it’s not just
people who live in tropical countries
and there is some evidence of um you
know slight increases in in Poe outcomes
even at much lower temperatures that we
would see in Europe or in um North
America those places and you say it
affects everyone but it particularly
affects v a vulnerable group pregnant
women and why has it taken so long to
investigate this then you say lots of
studies uh that the current limits are
based on are male
studies exactly I think this this
probably reflects you know our our lack
of um good Research into Women’s Health
globally which is is finally being you
know recognize that we need to consider
how different medical conditions and
environmental exposures may affect men
and women differently and um yeah it’s
quite shocking when I started working in
this field uh when we’re looking at
breastfeeding in women for example most
data that we have actually comes from
dairy cows we don’t have that much data
in human women which I I found quite
shocking well thanks for bringing it to
light now Professor Jane Hurst thanks
for joining us on the program
