Extreme heat poses growing health risk to children, study shows | Live Well
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When Aaron Bernstein became a pediatrician 15 years ago, it didn’t occur to him that the climate crisis would grow into a critical health problem for his young patients.
But over the years he started to notice more children visiting emergency rooms for heat-related illnesses, and some even suffered from climate-induced mental health issues.
“Almost nobody was considering climate change a health problem at the time,” Bernstein, the interim director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told CNN. “I feel like a total idiot for not seeing it earlier because we could have been more ahead of this than we have been.”
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On Wednesday, the New England Journal of Medicine, which Bernstein called the “holy grail” of all medical journals, published a comprehensive review of the science to-date and concluded that the effects of burning fossil fuels — things like air pollution, severe weather, poor water quality and extreme heat — pose a significant and growing risk to the health of babies and children.
Frederica Perera, lead author of the review and the founding director of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health at Columbia University, said the purpose of the study was to not only show the link between the planet’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels and children’s health, but to also point out the available solutions that could prevent climate-change-fueled disasters from putting the world’s youngest people at risk.
“We’ve been seeing this whole range of (climate) effects that are sending children to the ER, and the list goes on, so I decided to put it all together,” Perera told CNN. “In a way, this is bad news, but look, we know how to deal with this. We know how to bring down emissions. We can take action now to make a huge difference, and that was the purpose of the article.”
Although the paper outlines several extreme climate events including flooding as well as air pollution, researchers say that heat remains the deadliest of all natural disasters in the U.S. and that it poses a unique response situation.
“Heat is sneaky,” said Bernstein, who was not involved with the review. And because the impacts of heat can go unnoticed, Perera said it’s easy for parents or adult guardians, who have the ability to regulate their body temperatures better than kids, to overlook some symptoms when a child is suffering some heat-related condition.
The paper comes as extreme heat warnings have been issued for millions of people in the Southeast and Midwest.

Children play outside in downtown Chicago on Tuesday.
Experts have noted for years that the most vulnerable populations, including children and pregnant women, are at highest risk to heat-related illness like heat stroke.
“Children are dependent on adults for care and for receiving enough fluids and being placed in a cool place, making them particularly vulnerable,” Perera said. “We’ve seen tragic instances of children dying in parked cars during heat waves, where parents haven’t understood how hot it is.”
In January, Bernstein published a study that found that simply having been exposed to extreme heat increased the likelihood that a child would need to visit the emergency room for any reason in the summer, even on days when temperatures weren’t the hottest. Because of the climate crisis, a child born in the U.S. today will experience 35 times more life-threatening extreme heat events than one born about 60 years ago, Bernstein’s research showed.
“We know more than enough to recognize heat as a major risk to child health,” Bernstein said. “We have evidence that children are showing up in emergency departments for all kids of problems when it gets hot out; that women who are pregnant and exposed to heat may have worse birth outcomes; and that heat affects children’s ability to learn and perform well on exams.”
And as parts of the world continue to ramp up fossil fuel production, which will worsen the already accelerating crisis, Perera said she hopes the paper would motivate physicians and health care providers, who are a “trusted voice” around the world, to take on a larger role in advocating for climate policies to protect children from a warming planet.
“The clock is ticking,” she said. “We probably have less time because of the very sharp upward trajectory in emissions and temperatures, but there is a lot we can do to help children and families adapt to the already existing conditions brought by the changing climate.”
How to stay cool without air conditioning
Tips for staying safe in the heat this summer
Staying cool without AC

Heat can foster fun summer activities, but the body shouldn’t be too hot for too long, as too much heat can harm your brain and other organs, according to the US National Institutes of Health. Sweating is the body’s natural cooling system, but when that’s not enough, there’s increased risk for developing the heat-related illness hyperthermia — signs of which include heat cramps, heat edema and heat stroke.
Staying cool can be done by using some basic supplies and knowing how to manipulate your home to control its temperatures.
Here are 14 methods for doing so.
Stay hydrated

When you’re hot and flushed, hydrating yourself is the first and foremost step to cooling down, said Wendell Porter, a senior lecturer emeritus in agricultural and biological engineering at the University of Florida.
The temperature of the water doesn’t matter since your body will heat it, he added. If your body is suffering from the heat and needs to cool itself, it can’t do that without enough moisture, since the body cools itself by sweating.
Take a cold shower or bath

Taking a cold shower or bath helps cool your body by lowering your core temperature, Porter said.
For an extra cool blast, try peppermint soap. The menthol in peppermint oil activates brain receptors that tell your body something you’re eating or feeling is cold.
Use cold washrags on your neck or wrists

Place a cold washrag or ice bags (packs) on your wrists or drape it around your neck to cool your body. These pulse points are areas where blood vessels are close to the skin, so you’ll cool down more quickly.
Use box fans

Place box fans facing out of the windows of rooms you’re spending time in to blow out hot air and replace it with cold air inside.
If the weather in your area tends to fall between 50 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit in the mornings and evenings, opening the windows on both sides of the house during those times can facilitate a cross-flow ventilation system. If you do this, you can opt to use or not use the fans, but the fans would help cool the house faster, Porter said. The outdoors can pull the hot air from your home, leaving a cooler temperature or bringing in the breeze. Just be sure to close windows as the sun comes out, then open them when the weather is cool again.
You might not typically leave windows open for safety reasons, but if you’re at home more anyway due to the pandemic, this method could be feasible, Porter said.
Just resting near a fan would reduce your body temperature as well.
Photo by Sameerah Munshi on Unsplash
Close your curtains or blinds

If you have windows that face the sun’s direction in the morning through afternoon, close the curtains or blinds over them to “keep the sun from coming directly into the house and heating up (the) inside,” Porter said.
You could also install blackout curtains to insulate the room and reduce temperature increases that would happen during the day.
If you do turn the air conditioning on, don’t set it below 70 degrees Fahrenheit in an effort to cool the house faster, said Samantha Hall, managing director of Spaces Alive, an Australia-based design research company helping to create healthy, sustainable buildings.
“It just runs for longer to reach that temp and will keep going until you start to feel a bit chilly and is then hard to balance,” she added. Instead, keep the unit temperature as high as possible while still comfortable.
Sleep in breathable linens

Cotton is one of the most breathable materials, so cotton sheets or blankets could help keep you cool through the night.
Sleep in the basement

Photo by Point3D Commercial Imaging Ltd. on Unsplash
Don’t refrigerate or freeze blankets or clothing

Common advice for staying cool without air conditioning includes refrigerating or freezing wet socks, blankets or clothing then ringing them out to wear while you sleep. But this isn’t a good idea, Porter said.
Because of “the amount of energy they can absorb from your body that night, they will be warm in just a matter of minutes,” he said. “And then you’d have damp stuff that would mold your mattress. So you definitely don’t want to do that.”
Close the doors of unused rooms

If no one’s using a room that doesn’t have vents or registers, close the door to that area to keep the cool air confined to only occupied areas of the house.
Use the exhaust fan in your kitchen and/or bathroom

Flip the switch for the exhaust fan in your kitchen to pull hot air that rises after you cook or in your bathroom to draw out steam after you shower.
Photo by Ralph (Ravi) Kayden on Unsplash
Install energy-efficient light bulbs

Incandescent light bulbs generate a higher temperature than LED light bulbs do. To make the switch, watch for sales on energy-efficient bulbs, then slowly replace the bulbs in your house, Porter said.
Switching light bulbs can save money but won’t reduce a lot of heat in the home, Hall said. However, if you focus on switching the bulbs in areas you’re sitting near, that would make a more noticeable difference, Porter said.
Cook in the morning, with a slow cooker or outside

Oven heat can spread throughout your house. Keep the heat centralized in one area, such as a slow cooker. Or, cook outdoors on a grill to keep the heat outside.
Enjoy frozen treats

Eating an ice pop or ice cream to cool down may help for a moment. But don’t go overboard on the sugar if you’re overheated or at risk of being overheated, Porter said.
“Sugar would run your metabolism up and you’d start feeling internally hot,” he said. “So the cool treat might be good, but the extra sugar might not.”
Research what your state offers

If you’ve tried everything and still can’t beat the heat at home, you could look online for any local programs that are offering ductless air conditioners.
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