As climate change takes toll on maternal mental health, ASHA workers are tackling the challenge

Shagupta Makandar, 21, was five months pregnant when deadly floods swept into her village of Rajapur in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district in August 2019. She tried to flee the rising waters, first slogging through the mud on foot and then trying to bike over the treacherous terrain.

The mental stress and physical strain of fleeing led to her going into labour prematurely. But by the time she got to the nearest hospital, it was too late: her baby was born prematurely and died within an hour.

Makandar remained in hospital for the next three weeks, dealing not only with the physical effects of her ordeal but also the emotional distress. She spent several more months with her mother, unable to face returning to the home she shared with her husband where the flooding had occurred.

“I was so traumatised that I barely spoke,” she later recounted.

From floods to drought to extreme heat, the physical impact of climate change on pregnant women is well documented. A paper published in Nature found that from 2010-’20, exposure to floods was responsible for 107,888 excess pregnancy losses every year in 33 low- and middle-income countries, with South Asia accounting for the highest proportion of cases.

One study found that stillbirths in India increased by 28.6% between 2015…

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