A first set of dials for heat's youngest victims: four UN agencies team up to protect mothers and babies

Extreme heat quietly harms the people least able to escape it: pregnant women, newborns and small children. Now the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, UNICEF and the UN Population Fund have launched the first-ever shared set of priority indicators so countries can track exactly what heat does to mothers and babies — preterm births, low birthweight, pregnancy hypertension, child deaths and hospital visits during heatwaves — and act sooner. The need is stark: heat exposure raises the odds of preterm birth by about 26%, babies under one now live through 389% more heatwave days than in the late twentieth century, and an estimated 1.5 billion children worldwide are exposed to heatwaves.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: institutional program