The HEaT INFORM Pregnancy Study

The rising threat of extreme heat due to climate change is set to disproportionately affect disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, including pregnant women. Clinicians, Researchers, and Policy Makers working in maternal health are uniquely positioned to better understand and educate about the impact of climate change to ensure healthy future generations. There are significant gaps in our understanding of which period of pregnancy is the most vulnerable, how thermoregulatory capacity changes throughout pregnancy, and what underlying mechanisms are responsible for increased risks of observed adverse outcomes following extreme heat exposure. This proposed project co-led by Professors Adrienne Gordon and Ollie Jay will build on existing successful partnerships between the University of Sydney, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, and the Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Science and Research, New Delhi. Specifically, we will perform a pregnancy cohort study in 2 countries, and a climate chamber study in Sydney Australia, which will collectively contribute to the creation of a pregnancy-specific thermo-physiological model to determine heat-health risk for women throughout pregnancy. Our model will: 1) Improve future health outcomes by determining heat-health risks for women throughout pregnancy 2) Be accessible and applicable to clinicians, researchers and policy makers in low- and middle- income communities.