Climate change inevitably serves as a driver of population movement and displacement.1 The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre report on internal migration reported 32.6 million new internal displacements secondary to disasters in 2022 alone, 98% of which were climate-related disasters such as storms, floods, and droughts.2 This may only be the tip of the iceberg, since slow-onset effects of climate change, including sea level rise and widespread ecosystem changes, are also contributing significantly to forced migration.3 In 2018, more than half of those displaced internally worldwide secondary to conflict and violence were women and girls.4 Additionally, climate change disproportionately increases forced migration of women, who according to the United Nations (UN), make up 80% of those displaced by climate change.5

The link between climate change and migration has been widely reported on6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. Furthermore, there is a body of research exploring the disparate gendered impacts of climate change as well as the unique sexual and reproductive health (SRH) challenges that women face during various forms of migration. However, the specific nexus of climate-migration-SRH remains underexplored,14 and literature considering the specific domain of perinatal health in relation to climate migration is even more scarce.

In this chapter, we will consider how climate-related migration influences perinatal health outcomes through the antenatal, intrapartum, and postpartum periods. Additionally, we will explore how migration amplifies the existing threats posed to women's SRH by climate change. Finally, using the existing literature, we will provide a framework for safeguarding perinatal health at a time when up to a fifth of the global population is predicted to be displaced by anthropogenic climate change (Table 1).15