Extreme heat during pregnancy increases the risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, stillbirth, and maternal complications, yet maternal health remains almost entirely absent from climate adaptation planning, infrastructure design, and finance strategies . This is an integration gap.
Pregnancy is a stress test for climate resilience. The same gender lens that revealed how violence against women exposes failures in legal and social systems now reveals how maternal heat risk exposes failures in urban design, health infrastructure, and climate finance.
"Pregnancy is not a niche concern. It is a stress test for our cities, health systems, and adaptation plans.
— Prof. Charlotte Watts, Wellcome Trust,
Skoll World Forum, April 2026
THE HEAT-HEALTH NEXUS
WHAT THE CONVENINGS SURFACED
At Skoll World Forum in Oxford, Wellcome's £20 million commitment to transformative research on heat and maternal health provided a major anchor for the field. The session surfaced a consistent message: the issue is ready for policy, investment, and systems change. The challenge is practical integration of what we already know into decisions, designs, and investments that already exist – expanding impact.
At Women Deliver in Naarm (Melbourne), maternal heat risk was named as a leading indicator of whether climate adaptation is actually working — a framing both Wellcome and C40 Cities have since taken forward. Dandelion Dialogue participants identified heat-stable medicines as one of the most
underinvested practical interventions available, with the pharmaceutical sector only beginning to treat this as early adaptation infrastructure.
At the Project Dandelion Convening in Nairobi, the maternal health pathway group identified the critical evidence gap: how extreme heat specifically impacts maternal health across diverse geographies.
Nutrition and mental health in fragile settings were named as almost entirely absent from existing financing. The connection between heat, particulate air pollution, and direct maternal health consequences remains almost entirely absent from health and climate financing.
THE HEAT-HEALTH NEXUS
Extreme heat during pregnancy increases the risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, stillbirth, and maternal complications, yet maternal health remains almost entirely absent from climate adaptation planning, infrastructure design, and finance strategies . This is an integration gap.
Pregnancy is a stress test for climate resilience. The same gender lens that revealed how violence against women exposes failures in legal and social systems now reveals how maternal heat risk exposes failures in urban design, health infrastructure, and climate finance.
"Pregnancy is not a niche concern. It is a stress test for our cities, health systems, and adaptation plans."
— Prof. Charlotte Watts, Wellcome Trust, Skoll World Forum, April 2026
WHAT THE CONVENINGS SURFACED
At Skoll World Forum in Oxford, Wellcome's £20 million commitment to transformative research on heat and maternal health provided a major anchor for the field. The session surfaced a consistent message: the issue is ready for policy, investment, and systems change. The challenge is practical integration of what we already know into decisions, designs, and investments that already exist – expanding impact.
​
At Women Deliver in Naarm (Melbourne), maternal heat risk was named as a leading indicator of whether climate adaptation is actually working — a framing both Wellcome and C40 Cities have since taken forward. Dandelion Dialogue participants identified heat-stable medicines as one of the most underinvested practical interventions available, with the pharmaceutical sector only beginning to treat this as early adaptation infrastructure.
​
At the Project Dandelion Convening in Nairobi, the maternal health pathway group identified the critical evidence gap: how extreme heat specifically impacts maternal health across diverse geographies. Nutrition and mental health in fragile settings were named as almost entirely absent from existing financing. The connection between heat, particulate air pollution, and direct maternal health consequences remains almost entirely absent from health and climate financing.
