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| Sunday, 26 June 2005 11:31 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk
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Babies conceived during a heat wave are more likely to be born underweight and at risk of health problems, scientists have warned.
A study of over 12,000 Aberdeen children found that a temperature rise of one degree during early pregnancy caused the weight of newborn babies to fall by one fifth of an ounce.
Dr Debbie Lawlor of Bristol University, said: “Our results suggest that pregnant women should protect themselves from relative temperature extremes, in particular, high temperatures in early pregnancy.
“With the occurrence of temperature extremes, these findings have important public health implications. Low birthweight is associated with infant mortality and morbidity and birthweight is inversely related to cardiovascular disease and diabetes in later life.
“There was an inverse linear association between average outdoor temperature in the middle of the first trimester and birthweight. Women who were in the first trimester of pregnancy when the outdoor temperature was hotter tended to have lower birthweight babies.”
Researchers also found that cold temperatures in the last three months of pregnancy caused a drop in birthweight.
“Low birthweight in winter-born babies may be related to exposures to relatively high outdoor temperatures during the first trimester and colder outdoor temperatures in the third,” Dr Lawlor said.
“Our results tend to suggest that exposures to higher outdoor temperatures in the first trimester of gestation are more important than exposures to cold outdoor temperatures in the third.
“In general, humans have greater means of protecting themselves from the cold - by the use of high-quality housing, indoor heating, warm clothing and blankets – than they have from protecting themselves from the heat.”
It is thought that higher temperatures may affect birthweight affecting blood vessels in the mother’s body, restricting blood flow and depriving the foetus of essential nutrition.
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