Birth Weight of Your Newborn May be Impacted by Warmer Temperatures and Climate Change

It turns out that birth weight may actually be influenced by temperature. Scientists have developed a technique that measures the correlation between air temperature and birth weight, and found that high temperature increases the risk of lower birth weight.

In this case, the researchers created a high resolution air temperature estimation model to predict daily air temperature by kilometer and address level exposure during various prenatal exposure periods from date of conception through birth for each mother in the latest study. More specifically, they looked at a period between 2000 and 2008.

"We found that exposure to high air temperature during pregnancy increases the risk of lower birth weight and can cause preterm birth," said Itai Kloog, one of the researchers, in a news release. "An increase of 8.5 degrees Celsius in the last trimester of average exposure was associated with a 17 g decrease in birth weight of babies born full term after adjusting for other potential risk factors."

The findings are important to note when it comes to climate. More specifically, it reveals that this may be a factor to watch out for as temperatures warm.

"With the increase in temperatures over the last century and continued emissions from greenhouse gases, more attention is being focused on effects from heat," said Kloog.

The findings are published in Environmental Health Perspectives.

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