CG spoke with self-identified climate refugee Margaret Reynolds about how a Maine coalition is working to save an L&D unit amid a rash of rural maternity care closures across the state and country — and amid extreme weather that can complicate travel to health centers farther and farther away.
When CG looked at the potential reproductive, maternal, and infant health impacts of wildfire smoke exposure last week, tens of thousands of people in Spain and France had been urged to flee from fires raging there. Since then, it was reported that hundreds of thousands were urged to evacuate due to wildfires in Europe. Blazes have also been reported in Greece, Turkey, and North Africa, and hundreds of wildfires have continued in Canada.
Last week, "a 28-year longitudinal study of Chile wildfires and neonatal outcomes" was meanwhile published in the Journal of Perinatology: "Our findings underscore the importance of monitoring wildfire activity and protecting pregnant women from sustained smoke exposure as part of climate adaptation and perinatal health policies."
CG has previously covered the Ebola outbreak in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, including related impacts on women and girls, who face heightened risks of infection linked to caregiving and increased gender-based violence. Last week, multiple outlets reported that the DRC's death toll had surpassed 1,000, with current totals sitting above 1,500. But this week, Uganda declared its country Ebola-free after a recommended waiting period of 42 days — or two incubation cycles — without any new locally transmitted cases following the discharge of its last patient on June 16.
Amid heavy rains and deadly flash floods in Afghanistan's Nuristan Province earlier this month, Qamargull, 25 years old and pregnant, lost her husband after he was swept away by floodwaters, leaving her to care for their three children while preparing for the birth of her fourth. The report comes from the UNFPA, which, together with its partners, provided flood-affected people with emergency maternal health care, psychosocial support, and essential supplies.
Agence France-Presse reported that Pakistan's transgender community protested inflation rates with demonstrations in Karachi on Wednesday. One protest sign was said to read "high fuel prices, empty plates," pointing to how the economic insecurity already disproportionately felt by the community is being exacerbated by fuel and food price increases amid the globally disruptive U.S.-Iran war. "Pakistan's inflation rate leaped to 10 percent in the three months after the conflict began," according to AFP.
CG has previously reported on efforts by anti-abortion groups to leverage environmental policies to monitor wastewater for mifepristone, a medication used in abortion care, as part of continued efforts to advance abortion restrictions. A new study commissioned by Students for Life of America and released last week analyzed water samples from three U.S. cities and reported finding compounds attributed to mifepristone or its metabolites. Independent environmental scientists have questioned the study's methodology, citing the lack of a mifepristone-specific test, the absence of evidence demonstrating harm, and concerns about the peer review process at the journal, which appears to be overseen by anti-abortion physicians.
Politico reported last week that the Trump administration rejected participation in the U.N.'s Global Plan of Action for Sustainable Livestock Transformation raised at the Food and Agriculture Organization's recent Rome summit. "The word gender only appears once, to explain the numerous mentions of women and equality throughout the document," according to the outlet. "The goal is to promote equal opportunities for women farmers as well as their nutrition." The word, along with references to equality and climate, was described by an official as distracting from the FAO's main aims. The global plan was otherwise approved by delegates at the end of the summit.
"These things are not separable," Margaret Reynolds said of access to health care facilities, the power grid, and extreme weather.
Growing up in Mississippi and Louisiana, severe storms had a major impact on her life.
"I lost everything in Hurricane Katrina and in part moved to Maine because I'm a climate refugee," she told CG. "I mean, the year I left New Orleans, there were 27 named storms."
Now a mother of two, Reynolds came to Maine four years ago, finding it a "desirable" location and a place where a family may not have to fear losing their home to a natural disaster.
But if the labor and delivery — or L&D — unit at MaineHealth Lincoln Hospital in coastal Damariscotta closes and forces rural patients to travel great distances to have their babies, there could be a higher chance of obstacles like winter storms or floods impacting Reynolds's future maternal care.
She had been thinking about having a third child and wanted to ask her midwife about it. That's when she learned the MaineHealth hospital system was considering shuttering birthing services at its Miles Campus in Lincoln County.
Reynolds, who also happens to be the Director of Program Implementation for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, called up her friends and soon co-founded the Miles Delivers Action Coalition with Leslie Wolf and Rosie Richards in a staunch grassroots effort to save the L&D unit amid a rash of rural maternity care closures across the state and the country. Read more...
This digest was curated and reported by Gracie Leavitt. It was written and edited by Gracie Leavitt and Kirsten Krueger.
One goal at Climate, Gendered is to bring a spotlight to the reality that proliferating pollution, increasing temperatures, rising seas, extreme weather, habitat loss, and more can uniquely and disproportionately impact girls, women, trans communities, and nonbinary people — especially those from communities of color, Indigenous people, disabled people, immigrants and displaced people, people experiencing poverty, and residents of low- and middle-income countries. We're also interested in the climate crises and concerns that can disproportionately affect men and boys.
This work cannot be done alone or in silos. We appreciate your feedback and observations. And please feel encouraged to share one way you noticed this week that climate and gender connect — and share CG with a friend.
"I think people think heart attacks, people think asthma. But they don't think about pregnant people," said Amy Padula, Acting Director of UCSF's Program on Reproductive Health & the Environment, about how pregnant people may be overlooked as one of the groups especially sensitive to wildfire smoke.
"Being a queer [or] trans activist and an environmental activist puts you in a greater sense of danger because both agendas are heavily under attack," Diego De Leon, Advocacy Chair at Out for Sustainability, told CG.
"While every family is different, mothers are disproportionately the default parent, meaning climate disruptions can add to the mental load, logistical challenges, and economic pressures many women already face," Laura Schifter, a Senior Fellow at the D.C.-based Aspen Institute, told CG.
"Incineration inevitably has an impact on the environment," Selma Benkhelifa of Progress Lawyers Network told CG about the U.S. government's previous plan to burn a cache of contraceptives instead of distributing them. "But the worst thing is depriving millions of women of access to contraception."
