TY  - JOUR
AU  - Noonan,Kelly
AU  - Reichman,Nancy E.
AU  - Corman,Hope
AU  - Dave,Dhaval
TI  - Prenatal Drug Use and the Production of Infant Health
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11433
PY  - 2005
Y2  - June 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11433
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11433.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Kelly Noonan
Department of Economics
Rider University
2083 Lawrence Road, Room SWG 306
Lawrenceville, NJ  08648
Tel: 609/895-5539
E-Mail: knoonan@rider.edu

Nancy Reichman
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Department of Pediatrics
Child Health Institute of New Jersey
89 French St., Room 1348
New Brunswick, NJ 08903
E-Mail: Nancy.reichman@umdnj.edu

Hope Corman
Department of Economics
Rider University
2083 Lawrenceville Road
Lawrenceville, NJ 08648
Tel: 609/895-5559
Fax: 609/896-5387
E-Mail: corman@rider.edu

Dhaval M. Dave
Bentley University
Department of Economics
175 Forest Street, AAC 195
Waltham, MA 02452-4705
Tel: 212/817-7955
Fax: 212/817-1597
E-Mail: ddave@bentley.edu
AB  - We estimate the effect of illicit drug use during pregnancy on low birth weight. We use data from a national longitudinal study of urban parents that includes post-partum interviews with mothers, hospital medical record data on the mother and newborn, extensive demographic information on both parents, and information about the city where the mother resides. We address the potential endogeneity of prenatal drug use and present estimates using alternative measures of prenatal illicit drug use. Depending on how drug use is measured, we find deleterious effects of illicit drug use on low birth weight that range from 3 to 5 percentage points.
ER  -