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Prenatal Care and Birthweight in Mexio

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  • 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
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    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 & 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.
    4. 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.
    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.

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