Climate doulas, call for evidence, Elrha agenda, new program from Pathfinder

There's a whole lot going on around the world: This weekly brief from Climate, Gendered is your chance to spend a few short moments on just five items with the potential to disproportionately impact over half the global population — and the ideas that might make a difference.

Doula C-Hot program trains birth workers in assessing clients' climate risks: 'I would really love to see [it] fully tested and expanded' (The 19th)

A pilot program in Florida is training doulas to care for pregnant people who may be vulnerable to heat waves, hurricanes, and flooding. The grant-funded effort comes as "a growing body of research has linked environmental threats like extreme heat and wildfire smoke to an uptick in stillbirths, premature births, and low birth weights" as well as preeclampsia in pregnant people and poor maternal mental health.

The program isn't the only one of its kind. Elsewhere in the United States, doulas have helped new parents navigate water scarcity, air pollution, and lead contamination. Globally, frontline birth workers have been understood as vital to public health in the midst of intensifying weather events. In 2024, the theme of the International Day of the Midwife was "Midwives: A Vital Climate Solution."

New systematic review highlights a concerning gap in evidence regarding 'an essential principle of reproductive justice' (Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters)

A new systematic review from researchers at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile evaluates the impacts of the climate crisis on the right not to have a child, the right to have a child, and the right to parent children in safe, healthy environments, per the reproductive justice framework from Black women-led SisterSong.

The co-authors call for policy responses that both mitigate environmental threats and bolster communities’ adaptive capacities so that full reproductive rights can be more equitably realized in a changing climate. But they also identify a key opportunity for evidence generation, noting: 

… a significant lack of empirical evidence on how the climate crisis affects the right not to have children — an essential principle of reproductive justice. This absence highlights a critical research gap at the intersection of climate change and sexual and reproductive rights, particularly in relation to access to abortion and contraception.

Pregnant farmworkers are increasingly at risk in a warming world and without equitable protection (Associated Press)

Extreme heat is putting pregnant agricultural workers in grave danger. Laboring for long hours outdoors and in overheated nurseries, many of the people sustaining the essential food systems we all rely on are doing so in fear for their health, pregnancies, and freedom.

In the U.S., a high number of farmworkers are low-income Latino immigrants who face threats from federal officials, unsafe conditions, and a lack of access to health care. Protecting people from dangerous immigration raids, enforcing existing policies to accommodate pregnant people regardless of legal status, and implementing new heat-safety regulations could help.

This new agenda could be a tool for 'donors, governments, implementers, and researchers' working to address SRHR in humanitarian settings (Elrha)

A study from Elrha aims to help those dedicated to closing the evidence and results gaps in sexual and reproductive health and rights within conflict, displacement, and climate-impacted settings.

Shaping a research agenda, the organization offers stakeholders a set of priorities to guide time and funding investments through the next several years. Over that time, the effects of painful gaps could continue to be felt, with rising temperatures and sea levels poised to exacerbate them.

Potential strategies identified to protect health care continuity, infrastructure, and supplies included mobile clinics, solar-powered facilities, climate-adaptive workforce training, weather-resilient storage solutions, and digital health tools.

Pathfinder International launches Women&Co Nigeria to fuel women-led solutions in health and climate (Premium Times)

At the launch of Women&Co Nigeria in Abuja, Amina Dorayi of Pathfinder International observed that women have already been unraveling the country's biggest challenges "in their homes, communities, and workplaces," as paraphrased by the Premium Times.

The program is intended to bring together those leading innovations in health, climate, and economic development, connecting them with funding and fueling their impact. "By centering women’s leadership in innovation and development," said Dorayi, "Nigeria can accelerate progress toward equity, resilience, and prosperity for all."

One goal at Climate, Gendered is to bring an undeniable spotlight to the reality that proliferating pollution, increasing temperatures, sea level rise, extreme weather, habitat loss, and more can uniquely and disproportionately impact girls, women, trans communities, and nonbinary people. We welcome with gratitude your timely observations on this topic: Please share one way you noticed this week in which climate and gender connect — and share CG with a friend.