House Magazine: Heatwaves and maternity

P4P Vice-Chair Baroness Boycott has written in the latest edition of The House Magazine about the growing risks of heatwaves for pregnant women.

A growing body of evidence shows that high temperatures increase the risk of premature birth, low birth weight and other serious complications. Yet pregnant women are rarely warned about these risks, and some are still left to give birth and recover on wards without adequate cooling.

The good news: there is much we can do.

A new Wellcome Trust report "Pregnancy in a warming world; the health risks of heat and the case for action in the UK" sets out practical steps that could make a real difference - from better guidance for clinicians and recognising pregnancy as a heat-health vulnerability, to building heat resilience into maternity care and ensuring hospitals and clinics stay cool.

“While we cannot prevent all future heatwaves, we must do more than just hope they don’t happen. Decisions we make now will decide how prepared we are and whether pregnant women and their babies are protected from rising temperatures - or are left exposed to known risks that we had the opportunity to reduce but chose not to”. 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐁𝐨𝐲𝐜𝐨𝐭𝐭, 𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐡 𝐏𝐞𝐞𝐫

You can read the full House Magazine article here (15 June 2026):  https://lnkd.in/eFwGHwcw