NUS

Punishing hot weather affects not only a person’s health or work productivity but also affects couples’ fertility and birth outcomes, a project by the National University of Singapore (NUS) found. Rising temperatures could further reduce Singapore’s resident total fertility rate, which dipped below 1 – a record low – in 2023. The rate refers to the average number of babies each woman would have during her reproductive years. Researchers from the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine studied sperm samples from 818 men that were already stored at the National University Hospital’s (NUH) andrology section. The scientists then traced the men’s exposure to extreme heat – or when a day’s average temperature exceeds 29.8 deg C – by looking at weather records 90 days before they provided semen samples at NUH. The team found that those who were exposed to extreme heat during the three months had a 4...