Maternal mental health and adverse birth outcomes

verfasst von

Falk A.C. Voit, Eero Kajantie, Sakari Lemola, Katri Räikkönen, Dieter Wolke, Daniel D. Schnitzlein

Abstract

Recent research in economics emphasizes the role of in utero conditions for the health endowment at birth and in early childhood and for social as well as economic outcomes in later life. This paper analyzes the relation between maternal mental health during pregnancy and birth outcomes of the child. In particular, we analyze the relationship between maternal mental health during pregnancy and the probability of giving birth preterm (PT), having a newborn at low birth weight (LBW) or being small for gestational age (SGA). Based on large population-representative data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and cohort data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), we present extensive descriptive evidence on the relationship between maternal mental health and preterm birth by carrying out OLS estimates controlling for a wide range of socioeconomic characteristics. In addition, we apply matching estimators and mother fixed effects models, which bring us closer toward a causal interpretation of estimates. In summary, the results uniformly provide evidence that poor maternal mental health is a risk factor for preterm birth and low birth weight in offspring. In contrast, we find no evidence for an relationship between maternal mental health and small for gestational age at birth.

Organisationseinheit(en)

Institut für Arbeitsökonomik

Externe Organisation(en)

University of Oulu
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
Universität Bielefeld
University of Warwick
Universität Helsinki
Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit (IZA)
Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL)

Typ

Artikel

Journal

PLOS ONE

Band

17

ISSN

1932-6203

Publikationsdatum

31.08.2022

Publikationsstatus

Veröffentlicht

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Allgemein

Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung

SDG 3 – Gute Gesundheit und Wohlergehen

Elektronische Version(en)

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272210 (Zugang: Offen)