NEW DELHI: Extreme temperatures in the Indo-Gangetic plains (IGP) of India —either too cold or hot—and hazardous pollution are linked to an increase in preterm births, a leading cause of neonatal mortality and associated with long-term physical, neurodevelopmental & socioeconomic effects, a study said.
Noting that, despite recent improvements, India continues to record preterm births—when babies are born alive before 37 weeks of pregnancy are completed—at a considerable frequency, especially in the Indo-Gangetic plains, in states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, which exhibit high climate vulnerability.
Published in the journal BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, the study warned that the changing climate is likely to lead to more extreme heat in summers and more intense pollution in winters in densely populated basins like the IGP, which threatens to largely reverse the recent progress made in the field of maternal and child health by India.
In 2020, an estimated 13.4 million babies were born preterm globally. With the prevalence of 9.9% preterm births among all births, India alone accounted for 3.02 million preterm births—over 20% of the global total.
Alarmingly, the vulnerability to extreme temperatures is more pronounced among low-income populations, the study said. India, the sixth-most-affected country globally by extreme weather, has nine states among the top 50 most climate-vulnerable regions.
Speaking with this paper, Dr Ambarish Dutta, the senior author of the study, and Professor, Epidemiology, Indian Institute of Public Health, Bhubaneswar, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), said, “Our current study results show that pregnancy outcomes of women living in middle and lower Indo-Gangetic plains of India, comprising UP, Bihar and Gangetic West Bengal, are significantly determined by their exposure to atmospheric temperature during pregnancy.”
Dr Dutta said their study showed that among pregnant women who were exposed to the highest 20% average temperature during their entire pregnancy as compared to the middle 20% carried an additional risk of 126% to deliver preterm babies. The consequences of preterm birth include cognitive and developmental delays, impaired motor skills and long-term neurological & behavioural problems.