IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/shs/wpaper/1505.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Prenatal Care and Birthweight in Mexio

Author

Listed:
  • Fidel Gonzalez

    (Department of Economics and International Business, Sam Houston State University)

  • Santosh Kumar

    (Department of Economics and International Business, Sam Houston State University)

Abstract

We estimate the marginal impact of prenatal care on birth outcomes using a nationally representative data on about 14 million births in Mexico. Given the self-selection into prenatal care, we identify the causal impact of prenatal care on birth outcomes by estimating an instrumental variable model. We find positive impacts of increased prenatal visits on birthweight, length, and APGAR score of the newborn. The impacts of prenatal care on birth outcomes differ by mother's education, municipality's development level, and birthweight distribution. We find suggestive evidence that prenatal visit affects birth outcomes through reduction in pre-term births.

Suggested Citation

  • Fidel Gonzalez & Santosh Kumar, 2015. "Prenatal Care and Birthweight in Mexio," Working Papers 1505, Sam Houston State University, Department of Economics and International Business.
    • Handle: RePEc:shs:wpaper:1505
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.shsu.edu/academics/economics-and-international-business/documents/wp_series/wp15-05_paper.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sandra E. Black & Paul J. Devereux & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2007. "From the Cradle to the Labor Market? The Effect of Birth Weight on Adult Outcomes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 409-439.
    2. R. Todd Jewell & Patricia Triunfo, 2006. "The impact of prenatal care on birthweight: the case of Uruguay," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(11), pages 1245-1250, November.
    3. Theodore Joyce, 1994. "Self-Selection, Prenatal Care, and Birthweight among Blacks, Whites, and Hispanics in New York City," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 29(3), pages 762-794.
    4. Hoynes, Hilary & Page, Marianne & Stevens, Ann Huff, 2011. "Can targeted transfers improve birth outcomes?: Evidence from the introduction of the WIC program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 813-827, August.
    5. Theodore Joyce, 1987. "The impact of induced abortion on black and white birth outcomes in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 24(2), pages 229-244, May.
    6. Mark R. Rosenzweig & T. Paul Schultz, 1982. "The Behavior of Mothers as Inputs to Child Health: The Determinants of Birth Weight, Gestation, and Rate of Fetal Growth," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Aspects of Health, pages 53-92, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Hoynes, Hilary & Page, Marianne & Stevens, Ann Huff, 2011. "Can targeted transfers improve birth outcomes?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 813-827.
    8. Francis Vella, 1998. "Estimating Models with Sample Selection Bias: A Survey," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 33(1), pages 127-169.
    9. Douglas Almond & Hilary W. Hoynes & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, 2011. "Inside the War on Poverty: The Impact of Food Stamps on Birth Outcomes," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(2), pages 387-403, May.
    10. Gissele Gajate-Garrido, 2013. "The Impact of Adequate Prenatal Care on Urban Birth Outcomes: An Analysis in a Developing Country Context," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(1), pages 95-130.
    11. Warner, Geoffrey L, 1995. "Prenatal Care Demand and Birthweight Production of Black Mothers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 132-137, May.
    12. Conway, Karen Smith & Deb, Partha, 2005. "Is prenatal care really ineffective? Or, is the 'devil' in the distribution?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 489-513, May.
    13. Jeffrey J. Rous & R. Todd Jewell & Robert W. Brown, 2004. "The effect of prenatal care on birthweight: a full‐information maximum likelihood approach," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(3), pages 251-264, March.
    14. Wehby, George L. & Murray, Jeffrey C. & Castilla, Eduardo E. & Lopez-Camelo, Jorge S. & Ohsfeldt, Robert L., 2009. "Prenatal care demand and its effects on birth outcomes by birth defect status in Argentina," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 84-95, March.
    15. Evans, William N. & Lien, Diana S., 2005. "The benefits of prenatal care: evidence from the PAT bus strike," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 125(1-2), pages 207-239.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Santosh Kumar & Fidel Gonzalez, 2018. "Effects of health insurance on birth weight in Mexico," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(8), pages 1149-1159, August.
    2. Cygan-Rehm, Kamila & Karbownik, Krzysztof, 2022. "The effects of incentivizing early prenatal care on infant health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    3. Santosh Kumar & Fidel Gonzalez, 2020. "The Quantile effects of prenatal care on birth weight in Mexico," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(2), pages 1498-1507.
    4. Santosh Kumar & Kaushalendra Kumar & Ramanan Laxminarayan & Arindam Nandi, 2022. "Birth Weight and Cognitive Development during Childhood: Evidence from India," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 41(2), pages 155-175, June.
    5. Hamid Reza Oskorouchi, 2019. "Learning to Fight: Afghan Child Health and In‐utero Exposure to Conflict," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 45(2), pages 275-300, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hope Corman & Dhaval Dave & Nancy E. Reichman, 2018. "Evolution of the Infant Health Production Function," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(1), pages 6-47, July.
    2. Wehby, George L. & Murray, Jeffrey C. & Castilla, Eduardo E. & Lopez-Camelo, Jorge S. & Ohsfeldt, Robert L., 2009. "Prenatal care demand and its effects on birth outcomes by birth defect status in Argentina," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 84-95, March.
    3. Sonchak, Lyudmyla, 2015. "Medicaid reimbursement, prenatal care and infant health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 10-24.
    4. David Mmopelwa, 2019. "Prenatal care utilization and infant health in Botswana," Discussion Papers 2019-09, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    5. George L. Wehby & Jeffrey C. Murray & Eduardo E. Castilla & Jorge S. Lopez‐Camelo & Robert L. Ohsfeldt, 2009. "Quantile effects of prenatal care utilization on birth weight in Argentina," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(11), pages 1307-1321, November.
    6. Cygan-Rehm, Kamila & Karbownik, Krzysztof, 2022. "The effects of incentivizing early prenatal care on infant health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    7. Hoyong Jung, 2023. "Can Universal Cash Transfer Save Newborns’ Birth Weight During the Pandemic?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(1), pages 1-22, February.
    8. De Cao, Elisabetta & McCormick, Barry & Nicodemo, Catia, 2022. "Does unemployment worsen babies’ health? A tale of siblings, maternal behaviour, and selection," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    9. Habibov, Nazim N. & Fan, Lida, 2011. "Does prenatal healthcare improve child birthweight outcomes in Azerbaijan? Results of the national Demographic and Health Survey," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 56-65, January.
    10. Ryan Brown, 2018. "The Mexican Drug War and Early-Life Health: The Impact of Violent Crime on Birth Outcomes," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(1), pages 319-340, February.
    11. Gissele Gajate-Garrido, 2013. "The Impact of Adequate Prenatal Care on Urban Birth Outcomes: An Analysis in a Developing Country Context," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(1), pages 95-130.
    12. Verónica Amarante & Marco Manacorda & Edward Miguel & Andrea Vigorito, 2016. "Do Cash Transfers Improve Birth Outcomes? Evidence from Matched Vital Statistics, Program, and Social Security Data," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 1-43, May.
    13. Santosh Kumar & Fidel Gonzalez, 2018. "Effects of health insurance on birth weight in Mexico," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(8), pages 1149-1159, August.
    14. Petra Persson & Maya Rossin-Slater, 2018. "Family Ruptures, Stress, and the Mental Health of the Next Generation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(4-5), pages 1214-1252, April.
    15. Douglas Almond & Janet Currie, 2011. "Killing Me Softly: The Fetal Origins Hypothesis," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(3), pages 153-172, Summer.
    16. Xiaoying Liu & Jere R Behrman & Aryeh D Stein & Linda S Adair & Santosh K Bhargava & Judith B Borja & Mariangela Freitas da Silveira & Bernardo L Horta & Reynaldo Martorell & Shane A Norris & Linda M , 2017. "Prenatal care and child growth and schooling in four low- and medium-income countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(2), pages 1-21, February.
    17. Hilary Hoynes & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach & Douglas Almond, 2016. "Long-Run Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 903-934, April.
    18. Bejenariu, Simona & Mitrut, Andreea, 2014. "Bridging the Gap for Roma Women: The Effects of a Health Mediation Program on Roma Prenatal Care and Child Health," Working Papers in Economics 590, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    19. Haeck, Catherine & Lefebvre, Pierre, 2016. "A simple recipe: The effect of a prenatal nutrition program on child health at birth," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 77-89.
    20. Lisa Schulkind, 2017. "Getting a Sporting Chance: Title IX and the Intergenerational Transmission of Health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(12), pages 1583-1600, December.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:shs:wpaper:1505. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christian Raschke (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deshsus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.