health of fetuses, children and infants around the world. Scientists have discovered that increased heat is linked to rapid weight gain in children, which increases the risk of obesity later in life, and higher temperatures have been linked to childbirth. premature infants, which can have lifelong health effects, and increased hospitalizations for children.
Other studies have found that exposure to bushfire smoke doubled the risk of serious birth defects, while lower fertility has been linked to air pollution from burning fossil fuels, according to a report in the British Guardian newspaper , Saturday, January 15, 2022.
The studies have been published in a special issue of the journal Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, and have spread around the world from the United States to Denmark, Israel and Australia.
In this context, Professor Gregory Wellenius, who edited the issue with Amelia Weslink, both at Boston University School of Public Health in the US, said: “From the beginning, from preconception, through early childhood through adolescence, we began to see the important effects of risk climate over health.
He added, "This is a problem that affects everyone, everywhere. These extreme events will become more likely and more intense as climate change continues, and why they are important to us not in the future, but today."
Besides, the link between overheating and rapid weight gain in the first year of life was found by scientists who analyzed 200,000 births and found that babies who were exposed to the highest 20% of temperature during the night had a 5% higher risk of gaining weight. .
The researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem say the work has “important implications for both climate change and the obesity epidemic,” because childhood is critical in determining adult weight, and because obese people may suffer more in extreme temperatures. "It's an interesting hypothesis that is well worth pursuing," Willenius said.
Globally, 18% of children are now overweight or obese. One possible mechanism for rapid infant weight gain is to burn less fat to maintain body temperature when the ambient temperature is higher.
A study in California found that a mother's exposure to wildfires in the month prior to conception doubled the risk of a birth defect called gastroschisis, in which a baby's intestines and sometimes other organs protrude through a small hole in the skin.
Scientists examined two million births, 40% of them to mothers living within 15 miles of a wildfire and the resulting air pollution, which was already known to be harmful to pregnant women and their fetuses. They found a 28 percent increased risk of a birth defect in mothers who lived near wildfires in the first trimester of pregnancy.