The Effect of Hospital Maternity Ward Closures on Maternal and Infant Health

Emily Battaglia

American Journal of Health Economics, 2025, vol. 11, issue 2, 201 - 246

Abstract: In recent years, many hospitals, primarily in rural areas, have eliminated maternity care. The loss of maternity wards could affect births in multiple ways. Increased travel distance following closure could decrease utilization of prenatal care or increase out-of-hospital births. At the same time, closures could expose women to providers with more experience or better practices. I study the impact of maternity ward closures on births in the United States using national Vital Statistics data and a matched difference-in-differences research design. I find evidence that maternity ward closures yielded benefits. I document a large decline in Cesarean births among low-risk women, with null effects on infant health outcomes. My findings suggest that hospitals that closed maternity wards were over-performing Cesarean sections.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/727738 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/727738 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:amjhec:doi:10.1086/727738

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Journal of Health Economics from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().