India, July 23 -- A new national study has found that prolonged extreme heat during pregnancy raises the risk of adverse birth outcomes, and that it does not take a long heatwave to do harm. For Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where the long summer brings repeated bursts of intense heat across the coast and the interior, even the shorter spells appear to matter.
In a closer look at how the length of hot spells affected risk, the study found that exposure to three to four consecutive sweltering days was associated with a measurable and statistically significant rise in the odds of low birth weight. The finding suggests that recurring short spells, not only prolonged heatwaves, can add up over the course of a pregnancy.
The study, titled Effe...