Differences in human birth weight and corollary attributes as a result of temperature regime

Abstract

Background: Birth weight (BW) is an important attribute of human populations affecting post-natal mortality and later life morbidity, such as diabetes and reduced cognitive skills. BW is influenced by many factors, whereof temperature regime represents an important factor.

Methods: By applying a generalized linear model, the impact of temperatures, altitude, nutrition, age at motherhood and other potential causes for BW variation were evaluated in more than 60 countries worldwide. National IQ scores were analysed in the same model.

Results: This study identified a model explaining 2/3 of the global variation in BW. This model suggests that BW will decrease by 0.44–1.05% per °C increase in temperature under projected climate change. National IQ scores revealed a close relationship between IQ and BW. However, the model of IQ variation did not appear robust when challenged with variables not correlated with BW.

Conclusion: Climate change will affect BW, but it cannot be assumed that other human attributes such as IQ will change because (i) BW, in mainly being sensitive to intra-uterine conditions in the last quarter of pregnancy, is a poor predictor of intra-uterine conditions as such and (ii) developmental plasticity may require post-natal stimuli to unfold.

• Altitude
• birth weight
• birth weight variation
• global analysis
• IQ
• temperature

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Ian Woolsey for language proofing and the listed international organizations for providing free access to relevant data records.