The Sensible Knave

"I do not see that we are further along today than where Hume left us. The Humean predicament is the human predicament." - W.V.O. Quine

Monday, October 10, 2005

Fertility and Infant Health

In response to my post on prenatal and neonatal care, meep raises an interesting point:
Already, there have been noted effects of multiple births as a result of fertility treatments and older mothers (who naturally are more liable to multiple births, even without artificial help). Multiple births are connected to lower birth weights, and other troubles. This undoubtably has effects on infant mortality rates.

I would love to learn more about this. Given the lower birthrates found in many European nations, it's unlikely that fertility treatment is nearly as common over there.

Thanks to Bryan Caplan for bringing some attention to the question I raised.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The rate of preterm infants in the US has been steadily rising, and the standard explanation is the increased use of fertility treatments and the resulting multiple births.

(my wife gave birth at 27 weeks on Friday, so I've been hanging out in the NICU also)

- Patri Friedman

5:21 AM  
Blogger Andrew Marx said...

Congratulations! I hope that baby and mom are both doing well. They are doing amazing things in neonatology. May your child's course there go smoothly.

8:38 AM  

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