Care around birth, infant and mother health and maternal health investments - Evidence from a nurse strike

TY - JOUR

T1 - Care around birth, infant and mother health and maternal health investments - Evidence from a nurse strike

AU - Kronborg, Hanne

AU - Sievertsen, Hans Henrik

AU - Wüst, Miriam

PY - 2016/2/1

Y1 - 2016/2/1

N2 - Care around birth may impact child and mother health and parental health investments. We exploit the 2008 national strike among Danish nurses to identify the effects of care around birth on infant and mother health (proxied by health care usage) and maternal investments in the health of their newborns. We use administrative data from the population register on 39,810 Danish births in the years 2007-2010 and complementary survey and municipal administrative data on 8288 births in the years 2007-2009 in a differences-in-differences framework. We show that the strike reduced the number of mothers' prenatal midwife consultations, their length of hospital stay at birth, and the number of home visits by trained nurses after hospital discharge. We find that this reduction in care around birth increased the number of child and mother general practitioner (GP) contacts in the first month. As we do not find strong effects of strike exposure on infant and mother GP contacts in the longer run, this result suggests that parents substitute one type of care for another. While we lack power to identify the effects of care around birth on hospital readmissions and diagnoses, our results for maternal health investments indicate that strike-exposed mothers-especially those who lacked postnatal early home visits-are less likely to exclusively breastfeed their child at four months. Thus reduced care around birth may have persistent effects on treated children through its impact on parental investments.

AB - Care around birth may impact child and mother health and parental health investments. We exploit the 2008 national strike among Danish nurses to identify the effects of care around birth on infant and mother health (proxied by health care usage) and maternal investments in the health of their newborns. We use administrative data from the population register on 39,810 Danish births in the years 2007-2010 and complementary survey and municipal administrative data on 8288 births in the years 2007-2009 in a differences-in-differences framework. We show that the strike reduced the number of mothers' prenatal midwife consultations, their length of hospital stay at birth, and the number of home visits by trained nurses after hospital discharge. We find that this reduction in care around birth increased the number of child and mother general practitioner (GP) contacts in the first month. As we do not find strong effects of strike exposure on infant and mother GP contacts in the longer run, this result suggests that parents substitute one type of care for another. While we lack power to identify the effects of care around birth on hospital readmissions and diagnoses, our results for maternal health investments indicate that strike-exposed mothers-especially those who lacked postnatal early home visits-are less likely to exclusively breastfeed their child at four months. Thus reduced care around birth may have persistent effects on treated children through its impact on parental investments.

KW - Breastfeeding duration

KW - Care around birth

KW - Child health

KW - Denmark

KW - Difference-in-differences

KW - Health policy

KW - Nurse strike

KW - Parental investments

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84952901718&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.12.034

DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.12.034

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 26771337

AN - SCOPUS:84952901718

SN - 0277-9536

VL - 150

SP - 201

EP - 211

JO - Social Science and Medicine

JF - Social Science and Medicine

ER -