Heat harms mothers and newborns first — now the world has a way to count it

When a heatwave settles over a city, pregnant women and newborn babies are among the most vulnerable people in it — yet most national heat plans never named them as an at-risk group, so their outcomes went uncounted. The World Health Organization, with the World Meteorological Organization, UNICEF and UNFPA, has now launched the first global set of indicators to track extreme heat's toll on mothers and newborns: preterm births, stillbirths and child deaths during heat events, paired with weather data. What gets counted can get prevented — through early warnings, prepared clinics and heat plans that finally include the people at the front of the risk.

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