On the morning of October 13, 2025, Moni woke up to another uncontrollable coughing fit. She reached for water, then more water, hoping the scratch in her throat would settle. It did not.

The 26-year-old had conceived in January 2025. Moni lives in Dakshinpuri, a dense, industrial and high-traffic neighbourhood in South Delhi where AQI levels were above 440 in the weeks before her pregnancy. What started as mild irritation and dry cough during the peak pollution months of December and January had turned incessant by her fifth month.

A few minutes after waking, she felt a sudden dampness between her thighs. Her water had broken. Her due date was still more than a month away. As Moni kept coughing and gasping for breath, the family rushed her to the hospital. The doctors had to deliver the baby preterm. The newborn struggled to breathe and spent over a week in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The discharge summary noted “respiratory distress at birth”.

Newslaundry met Moni through Dr Ashutosh Kothari, Centre For Community Medicine at AIIMS Delhi, where researchers have been tracking several such cases to study the impact of air pollution on child birth. Dr Kothari told us, “Moni’s pregnancy is a clear case of preterm birth which could be linked to prolonged respiratory distress due to air pollution.”

Delhi’s air is impacting pregnancies, and the data shows it.

The number of preterm births in the capital have risen more than 51 percent over five years, from 21,134 in 2021 to 31,963 in 2025, according to an analysis of month-wise childbirth data obtained via RTI through the Directorate of Family Welfare.