A growing body of research supports the Barker hypothesis that adverse conditions around the time of birth have a negative effect on health. Nevertheless, the mechanisms linking early life conditions with health are still unclear. This paper investigates one of such potential mechanisms, specifically, ambient stress, by analyzing the effect of economic downturns as a stressor on the probability of Cesarean Delivery (CD). I focus particularly on male CD since the literature reports that male fetuses are more sensitive to stressors in utero than female fetuses. Using data from Lifelines, a large cohort study from the northern Netherlands, I show that the probability of CD for male babies increases when unemployment levels rise. This result suggests that maternal stress might be one of the mechanisms how early life economic conditions affect health.

中文翻译：

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经济下降时，剖腹产率会上升吗？经济压力假说的检验。

越来越多的研究支持Barker假说，即出生前后的不利条件会对健康产生负面影响。然而，将早期生活状况与健康联系起来的机制仍不清楚。本文通过分析经济衰退对剖宫产的可能性（CD）的影响，研究了一种潜在的机制，特别是环境压力。我特别关注男性CD，因为有文献报道，男性胎儿比女性胎儿对子宫内的应激源更为敏感。使用来自荷兰北部的一项大型队列研究“生命线”中的数据，我表明，当失业率上升时，男婴CD的可能性增加。这一结果表明，产妇压力可能是生命早期经济状况影响健康的机制之一。