From fetus to grave: Do mental health problems in pregnancy cause long-term damage to children skills?

Abstract: It is well established that health shocks early in life have long-term impacts on later life outcomes. We extend this literature to consider shocks in utero. Exploiting exogenous variation in mothers' mental health during and shortly after pregnancy we identify an important determinant of a child's long-run skills. We find sizeable effects on a child's psychological and socio-emotional skills at ages 7 to 12 years, but no effect on cognitive skills to age 16 years. Smoking during pregnancy, time investments and quality of parenting skills in early childhood are found to respond to mother's mental health and partially mediate child outcomes. These effects, however, are small indicating the importance of a genetic or biological channel for the impact of maternal mental health on child development.