A new study that links extreme rains with lower birth weights in Brazil's Amazon region underscores the long-term health impacts of weather extremes connected to climate change, researchers said on Monday.
Exceptionally heavy rain and floods during pregnancy were linked to lower birth weight and premature births in Brazil's northern Amazonas state, according to the researchers from Britain's Lancaster University and the FIOCRUZ health research institute.
They compared nearly 300,000 births over 11 years with local weather data and found babies born after extreme rainfall were more likely to have low birth weights, which is linked to worse educational, health and even income attainment as adults.