Killing Me Softly: The Fetal Origins Hypothesis

By D. Almond, Janet Currie. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2011

1,663 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In the epidemiological literature, the fetal origins hypothesis associated with David J. Barker posits that chronic, degenerative conditions of adult health, including heart disease and type 2 diabetes, may be triggered by circumstance decades earlier, in utero nutrition in particular. Economists have expanded on this hypothesis, investigating a broader range of fetal shocks and circumstances and have found a wealth of later-life impacts on outcomes including test scores, educational attainment, and income, along with health. In the process, they have provided some of the most credible observational evidence in support of the hypothesis. The magnitude of the impacts is generally large. Thus, the fetal origins hypothesis has not only survived contact with economics, but has flourished.

Subfields: Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cfe6fcee96135a30d400fc361260e64fb3417f4a

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In Obstetrics and Gynecology

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Citations in the corpus

Inequality at Birth: Some Causes and Consequences (2011, neutral): “These fixed effects estimates of negative effects of smoking 4 Almond and Currie (2011) and Currie (2009) offer more detailed overviews of factors that have been shown to influence birth weight, and of policies that have been shown to be effective in ameliorating the long-term consequences of low…”
Childhood Circumstances and Adult Outcomes: Act II (2018, neutral): “Certainly much of the literature on early intervention programs has this flavor, finding initial effects that “fade out” by age 8 or 9 but then reappear in adulthood (Almond and Currie, 2011b).”
The enemy between us: The psychological and social costs of inequality (2017, background): “(Almond & Currie, 2011) There is also increasing evidence that materialism and status consumption affect the wellbeing of children in unequal societies.”
Family Disadvantage and the Gender Gap in Behavioral and Educational Outcomes (2019, neutral): “Almond and Currie (2011) and Aizer and Currie (2014) review the large literature on the effect of maternal disadvantage on infant birthweight and infant health, while Almond et al. (2005), Black et al. (2007), and Figlio et al. (2014) document the robust and enduring adverse effect of low…”
Instrumental Variable Estimation of the Causal Effect of Hunger Early in Life on Health Later in Life (2016, neutral): “(2005); Barker (2007); Lawlor (2008) and Almond and Currie (2011).”
Estimation of Conditional Average Treatment Effects With High-Dimensional Data (2019, methodology): “Birth weight has been associated with health and human capital development throughout life (Black, Devereux, and Salvanes 2007, Almond and Currie 2011), and maternal smoking is considered to be the most important preventable cause of low birth weight (Kramer 1987).”
Unobservable Selection and Coefficient Stability: Theory and Evidence (2019, background): “Almond and Currie, 2011; Almond and Mazumder, 2011). A second literature, largely in epidemiology and public health, suggests that even much smaller variations in behavior – occasional drinking during pregnancy, not breastfeeding – could impact child IQ and birth weight. These latter studies, in par”