Maternal mental health and adverse birth outcomes

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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2022-08, Vol.17 (8), p.e0272210-e0272210
Main Authors: Voit, Falk A. C, Kajantie, Eero, Lemola, Sakari, Räikkönen, Katri, Wolke, Dieter, Schnitzlein, Daniel D
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Babies
Biology and Life Sciences
Birth weight
Brain research
Childbirth
Children
Children & youth
Complications and side effects
Earthquakes
Economic analysis
Estimates
Evaluation
Gestational age
Health aspects
Health risks
Hormones
Low birth weight
Maternal health services
Medicine and Health Sciences
Mental health
Offspring
Patient outcomes
People and Places
Pregnancy
Pregnant women
Premature birth
Risk analysis
Risk factors
Small for gestational age
Socioeconomic factors
Socioeconomics
Stress
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Summary: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.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0272210