Heatwave crisis as Kenyan newborns now face four times more extreme heat days, WHO warns

From the scorching plains of Turkana and Garissa to the humid Coastline, Kenya is feeling the heat, and it is pregnant women, newborns and young children who are paying the highest price.

That is the stark warning behind a new global framework launched on Wednesday by four UN agencies to help countries like Kenya track and respond to the hidden health impacts of extreme heat.

The World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), UNICEF and UNFPA have for the first time developed a set of priority indicators to monitor how rising temperatures harm maternal and child health.

For Kenya, where temperatures have risen by 1.5°C since the 1960s and heatwaves are becoming longer and more intense, the tool comes at a critical time.

According to the report, exposure to extreme heat increases the odds of preterm birth by 26 per cent, a major concern for Kenya, which already records an estimated 12 per cent of births as preterm, one of the highest rates in East Africa.

Preterm complications remain the leading cause of neonatal deaths in Kenyan hospitals, accounting for nearly 35 per cent of newborn deaths according to the Ministry of Health's Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS).

Even more worrying for Kenya's Arid and Semi-arid Lands (ASALs), babies under one year experienced 389 per cent more heatwave days globally in 2024 compared to the 1986-2005 baseline.

In counties like Turkana, Marsabit, Wajir and Mandera, where daytime temperatures regularly exceed 38°C, and in Mombasa, where high humidity worsens heat stress, newborns are unable to regulate body heat and are at high risk of dehydration, heatstroke and death.

Globally, 1.5 billion children are now exposed to more frequent, longer and severe heatwaves, millions of them in Kenya.

WHO's Department of Environment, Climate Change, One Health and Migration Director Bruce Gordon said, "As our world continues to heat up, it creates new risks for health, and older people, pregnant women, newborns and children are among those least able to escape them. Our health systems need the data to recognise this reality and take action from protecting people during heatwaves to embedding climate risk into everyday health services."

The challenge in Kenya has been invisibility, while the Kenya Meteorological Department issues heat advisories, health facilities from Kenyatta National Hospital to county referral hospitals in Mombasa, Kisumu and Lodwar rarely link maternity outcomes to temperature data.

A mother delivering prematurely in Kwale during a heatwave is recorded as a preterm case, not a climate-related case.

Director of WHO's Department of Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing Dr Pascale Allotey said, "What health systems do not count, they cannot respond to.  By tracking outcomes such as preterm birth, child deaths and illnesses, and health-facility visits alongside heat exposure, countries like Kenya can identify potential impacts and take action to protect women and children."

The new UN framework provides a practical checklist that Kenya's Ministry of Health and Council of Governors can integrate into the Kenya Health Information System (KHIS).

Pregnancy outcomes include monitoring rates of preterm births, stillbirths, low birthweight and pregnancy hypertension (preeclampsia) during heat periods, as Kenya already struggles with hypertensive disorders, which cause 20 per cent of maternal deaths and heat is known to worsen hypertension.

The newborn and child illness, where tracking neonatal deaths, child admissions for dehydration and outpatient visits in under-fives during extreme heat as in coastal counties, overlaps with increased diarrheal diseases as water becomes scarce.

The health system pressure, measuring surges in health facility visits in counties under heat alerts, to help countries like Tana River and Kilifi prepare maternity wings with fans, water and backup power.

The school disruption: using school attendance data to see how heat keeps children, especially girls, out of class and this is already a reality in northern Kenya, where schools close early due to extreme afternoon heat.

By overlaying this data with temperature data from the Kenya Met Department, county health departments can spot unusual patterns for instance, a spike in low birthweight in Lodwar after a two-week heatwave and act quickly.

WHO is now urging Kenya to develop a dedicated Heat-Health Action Plan. Currently, Kenya has a National Climate Change and Health Strategy, but counties lack specific protocols for pregnant mothers during heatwaves.

For coastal communities, where many mothers live in mabati houses that trap heat and walk long distances to clinics in the sun, the interventions could be lifesaving.

Experts recommend simple, county-led actions, by rescheduling antenatal clinics to early morning, creating cooling spaces in health centres, issuing SMS alerts in Kiswahili to pregnant mothers through Linda Mama platforms and training Community Health Promoters to check on newborns during heatwaves.

Kenya Red Cross Society and UNICEF Kenya have already piloted early warning systems in Turkana, but the new framework would make such protection national.