Speaker: Jihui Chen, Illinois State University
Host: Lan Zhang, Associate professor, RIEM
Time: 14:30-16:00, June 12, Friday
Venue: Yide Building H503, Liulin Campus
Abstract: While the adverse effects of maternal choices during pregnancy (i.e., smoking, alcohol) on subsequent child development is well understood in the literature, less is known about how pregnancy conditions may alter maternal behaviors during a child's early life. In this paper, we investigate how pregnancy complications affect maternal smoking decisions. Using data from the Millennium Cohort Study in the U.K., our estimation of the Cragg “two-part" model shows that bleeding problems (either in early or late weeks) decrease the probability of smoking, although they do not affect the quantity of cigarettes consumed by expectant mothers who smoke. Consistent with previous studies, our analysis indicates that income and education have a negative effect on maternal smoking during pregnancy, and compared to other races, white pregnant women are more likely to smoke. These findings are largely confirmed in the sequential logit analysis where we identify four different smoking outcomes based on smoking behaviors during and immediately after pregnancy, namely, continue smoking, continue cessation, stop smoking, and relapse into smoking. In particular, we find that pregnancy complications reinforce the cessation decision even after giving birth, especially for mothers who have experienced high blood pressure, vomiting and anemia during pregnancy. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find little evidence that pregnancy complications increase the probability of relapsing into smoking.
