- reported fair/poor health status, BMI, and smoker status) on infant birth outcomes (measured by probability of pregnancy, probability of live birth, length of gestation, and birth weight at time t). By constructing a 21-year panel data set with annual information from the original 4-wave panel
structure of the Add Health data set, we are able to estimate the impac
pregnancy outcomes at current time period, one year prior, two years prior, and three years prior to pregnancy.
Overall, self-reported fair/poor health at t-1 and t-3 has a positive impact on the pregnancy probability for older group of women (age greater than 21) in our estimation sample and a negative impact for the younger group (age less than 21). This counter-intuitive finding might suggest
possible behavior changes in preparation of pregnancy. That is, those who observe poor health may wait one or more years to become pregnant in order to restore their health. Our data set does not allow us to control for health at time period t while also examining the effect of health at time period t-1. It does have a positive impact on probability of pregnancy, which we interpret as additional correlation bias reflecting a positive propensity to engage in unhealthy behaviors. We did not observe any significant impact of self-reported fair/poor health on length of gestation and birth weight of infants.
Being underweight leads to less desirable pregnancy outcomes, such as lower pregnancy probability. On the hand, being overweight/obese leads to higher probability of live birth, longer gestation period, and higher birth weight of infants. For the older group, being overweight/obese contributes positively to probability of pregnancy. For the younger group, the effect is opposite. Smoking has a negative impact on infant health measures such as probability of live birth and infant
impact on pregnancy outcomes. A data set with annual survey responses can be utilized in future research to a
VI. Appendix
Table A1: Coefficient estimates of the impact of other exogenous variables on pregnancy outcomes, everyone
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