IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0210715.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Paternal investment and low birth weight – The mediating role of parity

Author

Listed:
  • Anna Merklinger-Gruchala
  • Grazyna Jasienska
  • Maria Kapiszewska

Abstract

According to life-history theory, paternal investment affects the well-being of offspring. We hypothesized that environmental stress caused by a lack of paternal investment may diminish maternal resource allocation during pregnancy, especially for women who already have dependent children. Our study was conducted on a representative group of more than 80,500 singleton, live-born, full-term infants born in Krakow, Poland in the period 1995–2009. Birth data were obtained from the birth registry. We found that missing data about fathers (a proxy measure of low paternal investment) was associated with higher probability of multiparous mothers giving birth to low-birth-weight infants (1.48; 95% CI 1.05–2.08), but this was not the case with primiparous mothers (1.19; 95% CI 0.89–1.59). The statistically significant synergistic effect between parity and paternal investment was found (Synergy Factor = 2.12; 95% CI 1.47–3.05, p

Suggested Citation

  • Anna Merklinger-Gruchala & Grazyna Jasienska & Maria Kapiszewska, 2019. "Paternal investment and low birth weight – The mediating role of parity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0210715
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0210715
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0210715
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0210715&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0210715?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Teitler, Julien O., 2001. "Father involvement, child health and maternal health behavior," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(4-5), pages 403-425.
    2. Coall, David A. & Chisholm, James S., 2003. "Evolutionary perspectives on pregnancy: maternal age at menarche and infant birth weight," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(10), pages 1771-1781, November.
    3. Padilla, Yolanda C. & Reichman, Nancy E., 2001. "Low birthweight: Do unwed fathers help?," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(4-5), pages 427-452.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Garfinkel, Irwin & McLanahan, Sara S. & Tienda, Marta & Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, 2001. "Fragile families and welfare reform: An introduction," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(4-5), pages 277-301.
    2. Irwin Garfinkel & Sara McLanahan & Marta Tienda & Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, 2002. "Fragile Families and Welfare Reform: An Introduction," JCPR Working Papers 259, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    3. Teresa Castro Martín, 2010. "Single motherhood and low birthweight in Spain," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 22(27), pages 863-890.
    4. Nancy E. Reichman & Hope Corman & Kelly Noonan & Dhaval Dave, 2006. "Typically Unobserved Variables (TUVs) and Selection into Prenatal Inputs: Implications for Estimating Infant Health Production Functions," NBER Working Papers 12004, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Cheri A. Vogel & Kimberly Boller & Jennifer Faerber & Jacqueline D. Shannon & Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda, "undated". "Understanding Fathering: The Early Head Start Study of Fathers of Newborns," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 172b8c02d7484418983e61174, Mathematica Policy Research.
    6. Jerico Franciscus Pardosi & Nick Parr & Salut Muhidin, 2017. "Fathers and infant health and survival in Ende, a rural district of Eastern Indonesia," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 185-207, June.
    7. Garfinkel, Irwin & McLanahan, Sara S. & Tienda, Marta & Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, 2001. "Fragile families and welfare reform part II," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(6-7), pages 453-456.
    8. Julien O. Teitler & Nancy E. Reichman, 2001. "Cohabitation: An Elusive Concept," Working Papers 967, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    9. Ayllón, Sara & Ferreira-Batista, Natalia N., 2015. "‘Mommy, I miss daddy’. The effect of family structure on children's health in Brazil," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 75-89.
    10. Choi, Jeong-Kyun & Jackson, Aurora P., 2011. "Fathers' involvement and child behavior problems in poor African American single-mother families," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 698-704, May.
    11. repec:mpr:mprres:3603 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Murshid, Nadine Shaanta, 2016. "Mothers' empowerment and father involvement in child health care in Bangladesh," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 17-23.
    13. Nancy E. Reichman & Hope Corman & Kelly Noonan & Dhaval Dave, 2009. "Infant health production functions: what a difference the data make," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(7), pages 761-782, July.
    14. Cristina Moya & Anna Goodman & Ilona Koupil & Rebecca Sear, 2021. "Historical Context Changes Pathways of Parental Influence on Reproduction: An Empirical Test from 20th-Century Sweden," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-22, July.
    15. Jennifer B. Kane & Claire Margerison-Zilko, 2017. "Theoretical Insights into Preconception Social Conditions and Perinatal Health: The Role of Place and Social Relationships," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 36(5), pages 639-669, October.
    16. repec:pri:crcwel:wp01-07-ff-teitler is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0210715. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.