Being a mom is hard — the heat is making it harder
A new study published in Science Advances highlights that climate change is causing children to experience significantly more days of heat stress annually. The author reflects on the personal difficulty of raising a child during record-breaking heat waves.
Why it matters
The intersection of climate change and public health, particularly for vulnerable populations like children, is becoming a critical policy and social issue.
It’s 8:52 AM and 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 Celsius) where I live in Southern California. My husband just came back from a morning outing with our four-month-old. “How was the botanic garden?” I ask him. “It was okay. It was just too hot,” he tells me. I didn’t expect us to spend so much of our son’s first summer cooped up inside, hiding from the heat.
As I write this, an extreme heat warning for my area is glaring at me from my phone, effective for at least the next three days. “Dangerously hot conditions with high temperatures up to 110 [degrees Fahrenheit] expected,” my weather app warns me. “Stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun.”
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