Extreme weather events threaten children’s health – 12/02/2023 – Balance and Health

In the middle of Children’s Day, Juliana Santos, 25, had to break the promise she had made to her daughter Ana Júlia, 2. Once again, she had to postpone the girl’s trip to play at the playground near her house because there was thick smoke, resulting from fires, covered the city of Manaus.

Even at such a young age, Ana Júlia already knows that, when the sky is covered in smoke with a strong burning smell, she cannot play in the street. She was born prematurely and, from the first hours of life, has had difficulty breathing.

Despite understanding that smoke is bad for her health, that day, Júlia cried because she couldn’t leave the house. “It breaks my heart to see that my daughter doesn’t have the right to leave the house to play, like I did when I was a child. But I can’t let her go out and breathe toxic smoke like that, because then she suffers from asthma attacks , can’t breathe and can’t sleep because of the strong cough”, says the mother.

With smoke waves becoming increasingly common in the Amazon region, children, like Ana Júlia, have not only had their health compromised, but also suffer from the lack of access to fundamental rights, such as playing and living in an environment clean and healthy.

Children’s well-being has also been affected by a series of other extreme weather events, which has led UN agencies to issue a warning that the effects of these situations on maternal and child health have been neglected. , underreported and underestimated.

The document was issued on the eve of the start of COP28, which began this Thursday (30) in Dubai. The agencies classified as “a glaring and emblematic omission” the fact that most countries do not mention the health of pregnant women and children in their response plans to climate emergencies.

This is the case of Brazil. Thousands of children have had their health and essential care affected by a series of heat waves, extreme droughts, intense rains, floods and forest fires in the country.

Still, the PNA (National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change), established in 2016 to guide initiatives to manage and reduce climate risk, makes no mention of actions to mitigate harm to children. In a statement, the MMA (Ministry of the Environment) said it had formed working groups to improve the plan and include measures that protect children’s rights.

For child health experts, policies in this regard are urgent, as the effects of climate events experienced in the country cause lasting and even irreversible consequences for children’s development.

They highlight that the losses can be even greater when health is threatened in the first thousand days of a child’s life, which corresponds to 40 weeks of gestation (270 days) plus a baby’s first two years (730 days). This period is considered by research as the “golden interval” for the child to reach their full growth potential and become a healthy adult.

“It is precisely because it is the period in which children develop the most that they also become more susceptible and vulnerable to adverse conditions. Everything that happens during this period is decisive for the rest of their lives, it affects the child in physical and emotional aspects. and intellectuals”, says doctor Carlos Augusto Mello da Silva.

The specialist, who is president of the department of toxicology and environmental health at SBP (Brazilian Society of Pediatrics), explains that children’s metabolism is very intense at this stage, which is why environmental conditions have such an influence on their health and development.

“They are a growth machine during this period, which requires a lot of energy. Therefore, they breathe much more than an adult, consume much more water, have faster heartbeats. Thus, air pollution, heat or drought extremes have much more serious effects on children, because they will inhale more pollutants or become dehydrated more easily.”

With extreme events becoming increasingly common, one of the necessary measures to protect children will be, for example, keeping them indoors for longer to avoid exposure to heat and dry, polluted air. This type of protection, however, can harm development in other aspects.

This is what worries Juliana about having to leave her daughter indoors for so long when smoke fills the city. “She is an only child, she still doesn’t go to school. She usually plays with other children in the playground, that’s why she misses it so much”, says her mother.

Alessandra Dias, 32, an early childhood education teacher at a school in São Paulo, feels anguish on days of extreme heat, when she cannot let her children play in the playground. “It’s clear how they become more irritated. Not only because of the heat, but because they are confined to the room. They miss going out, running in an open area, seeing the sky.”

“It worries me to think that this will become more frequent. Today, heat waves last a few days and it’s already difficult to deal with them. I wonder what the impact will be on children who have to live with these situations for longer,” he says the teacher, who works with a class of 2 and 3 years old.

Family doctor Enrique de Barros, who is part of the planetary health working group of the World Organization of Family Doctors (Wonca), says that depriving children of contact with external environments, especially green areas and water clean, impacts physical and socio-emotional development.

“We saw this impact in the pandemic, when children were locked up at home. Now, imagine in the future, when they cannot play because we are going to have periods of intense rain, heat and drought. So, like in the pandemic, we may have an increase in cases of obesity, anxiety, motor losses, emotional delay.”

International agencies warn that the world needs action to curb climate change, but assess that the planet is already experiencing a level of irreversible change. Therefore, Barros believes it is important to adopt urgent measures to mitigate losses to small children.

“We need solutions for the short and medium term, such as increasing green areas in schools and cities to help reduce local temperatures. Changing areas of asphalt or flooring, which heat up a lot, to avoid further heat emission or burns in case children fall. These are very important adaptive issues that need to be addressed now.”

Why is children’s health more vulnerable to climate change?

• Children’s bodies are undergoing physical development, especially during early childhood (from 0 to 6 years old). Therefore, they are more sensitive to environmental stimuli;

• Because they are developing, children have a much faster metabolic activity than adults. They, for example, breathe 50% more air per kg of body weight than adults – which increases exposure to air pollutants;

• Globally, more than 90% of children are exposed to particulate matter at levels above those permitted by the WHO, defined as 5mcg/m3;

• Exposure to air pollutants during pregnancy can harm the development of the fetus, in addition to compromising growth and causing damage to vital organs (such as the brain, lungs, reproductive, nervous and immune systems). It also increases the risk of diseases in childhood, with damage to health throughout life;

• The greater metabolic activity of children also means that they need to drink, proportionally, more water than adults per kg of body weight. Which makes them more susceptible to dehydration and the risk of diseases due to contamination, such as gastroenteritis;

• Children tend to carry out more outdoor activities than adults. Therefore, they are most affected by periods of extreme heat and cold, low air humidity, heavy rain, as well as allergic agents and insect bites (such as dengue fever and malaria).

Source: SBP (Brazilian Society of Pediatrics) and United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

The Childhood and Climate series received support from the “Early Childhood Reporting Fellowship” program, from The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma project, at Columbia University