Maternity ward closures and infant health outcomes, maternal health outcomes, and birth procedures
Astrid de Linde, Doctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Health Management and Health Economics at the University of Oslo
Tuesday, 07 October 2025, 11am to 12pm
Date and time: Tuesday 07 October, 11:00 hours
Location: L1 Main Meeting Room, Richard Doll Building, Old Road Campus, Headington, OX3 7LF
To Join: This is a free event, which will be taking place both in-person and online via Zoom/Microsoft Teams. Register
Abstract:
We analyze the short- and long-term impacts of maternity ward closures using registry data on every delivery in Norway from 1981 through 2019. Among those directly experiencing a closure, we find a small decline in 5-minute Apgar score and increased probability of birth outside institution. Since this drop in Apgar is not reflected across the other indicators, we hypothesize it reflects different institutional scoring standards as opposed to a health effect. For long-term outcomes, we find treatment as an infant increases the likelihood of beginning high school by 1 percentage point, but has no effect on graduating. Furthermore, for infants assigned female at birth, we find early-life treatment does not change the probability of giving birth as an adult or experiencing negative health conditions during pregnancy. We hypothesize robust prenatal care and health and social services may mitigate the impact of closures and thus account for a limited treatment effect.
Bio:
Astrid de Linde is a Doctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Health Management and Health Economics at the University of Oslo. Her research focuses on health economics and applied econometrics, with an emphasis on how health service centralization affects access and outcomes. She works with Norwegian registry data to study policy-relevant issues, including the impact of maternity ward closures and urgent care centre mergers.