As heat gets more extreme, pregnant farmworkers are increasingly at risk

October 23, 2025

Agricultural workers recount working in extreme heat while expecting. Advocates say more protections are needed to ensure the health and well-being of the expectant moms and their babies.

One hot day last summer, Clarisa Lugo was inspecting and counting corn and soybean plants in the middle of a 300-acre farm field in Illinois when she started throwing up and panting. Her heart raced, she stopped sweating and a pounding headache didn’t go away for hours.

The heat index — a blend of temperature and humidity — had hit 105 degrees, and Lugo, who was eight months pregnant, was suffering from heat illness.

“I remember that that day it was hard for me to go back to normal” despite drinking water and putting ice on her body, she recalled.

Agricultural workers are already among the most vulnerable to extreme heat, and pregnant workers are coming under greater risk as temperatures rise because of climate change. Many in the U.S. are low-income Latino immigrants who toil under the sizzling sun or in humid nurseries open year round. Heat exposure has been linked to many extra risks for pregnant people, and while protections exist, experts say they need better enforcement and more safeguards are needed.

Compounding these risks is the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration. Many people are too afraid to seek medical and maternal care, according to research and interviews with advocates and health care providers, and are increasingly fearful of retribution if they advocate for safe work environments.

The Associated Press interviewed four agricultural workers who recounted experiences of working in extreme heat while pregnant. Three spoke under the condition of anonymity because they’re in the country illegally or fear reprisals from their employers.

Temperature rise in big agricultural states

California, one of the nation's most agriculturally productive states, employed more than 893,000 agricultural workers in 2023, according to state data. Iowa, also among the top 10 agriculture-producing states, provides more than 385,000 jobs in the agriculture industry, according to a 2024 study.

Since the start of the 20th century, California temperatures have increased almost 3 degrees, according to state and federal data. Warming has accelerated, and seven of the past eight years in that state through 2024 were the warmest on record. Iowa has seen temperatures increase by more than 1 degree during the same period while in Florida, another big agriculture state, average temperatures have increased by more than 2 degrees.

When it comes to how the body reacts, even small temperature increases can make a difference.

One study found that agricultural workers had more than 35 times the risk of heat-related deaths than other workers. But deaths are hard to track and are likely undercounted. In the U.S., an estimated one-third of farmworkers are women — an increasing share of the farm workforce.

Lugo and her baby ended up fine. But others haven’t been so lucky.

As one nursery worker in Florida put it: “I’ve wanted to leave this work,” but “I have to fight for my children.”

Dangers of heat and exertion

An agricultural worker recalled working in a Florida nursery in 2010 amid intense heat. She was four months pregnant and would spend hours carrying heavy pots of plants and bent over weeding and planting indoor foliage such as monsteras. At work one day, she felt painful abdominal cramping. She knew something was wrong when she saw blood in the toilet.

“(At the hospital) they told me that I had already lost the baby,” she said. She believes the physical work combined with heat caused her miscarriage.

Another nursery worker in Florida worked four months into her pregnancy in 2024, vomiting — sometimes after drinking water — and feeling nausea and headaches in part because of the heat.

Her baby was born prematurely, at seven months.

“(The doctor) told me that I spent too much time bent over ... and I wasn’t eating well for the same reason, because of the heat," she said.

Pregnancy increases the risks of extreme heat because the body has to work harder to cool down. Heat exposure has been linked to increased risk of miscarriages, stillbirths, preterm births, low birth weight and birth defects.

Combining pregnancy and heat with physical labor can more quickly overwhelm the body's cooling system, increasing the likelihood of dehydration, heat illness and heat stroke. Even short-term exposure to heat can increase the risk of severe maternal health complications, such as high blood pressure disorders of pregnancy, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

In the worst cases, it can kill.

Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez was 17 and two months pregnant when she died in 2008 from heatstroke after pruning grapes in a California farm. Her supervisors failed to provide shade and water while she worked for hours in nearly triple-digit heat, authorities said.

California’s outdoor heat standard, enacted in 2005, was later named in Jimenez's honor.

Unclear how sporadic regulations may benefit farmworkers

No federal heat protections exist in the U.S., although the Trump administration appears to be moving forward with a proposed rule. Some states, including California and Washington, have their own protections, while others, like Texas and Florida, have barred local governments from implementing their own. In states with protections, advocates say they’re not adequately enforced and pointed to a widespread distrust of reporting systems.

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