We study whether exposure to earthquake affects health at birth. A mother-fixed-effect model together with the spatiotemporal variation of earthquakes in Chile allow us to better estimate the impacts on birth outcomes. Our findings show that exposure to earthquakes affects fetal growth. Infants born to mothers exposed to earthquakes in the second trimester are 1.8% more likely to be large for gestational age (LGA), which is a large effect from a baseline of 7% of LGA newborns. The reported impact varies across mothers' socioeconomic status, with relatively poorer Chilean mothers being more vulnerable to earthquakes. A possible mechanism that explains these results could work through changes in the incidence of women with diabetes. We provide indirect evidence in this regard. Mothers with diabetes are more likely to have large-for-gestational-age babies. Exposure to earthquakes increases the incidence of diabetes among the affected population, with the observed impact on diabetes being relatively higher among women of lower socioeconomic status.

中文翻译：

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在子宫中生长：地震活动对胎儿生长的影响。

我们研究地震暴露是否会影响出生时的健康。母亲固定效应模型与智利地震的时空变化一起使我们能够更好地估计对生育结果的影响。我们的发现表明，地震暴露会影响胎儿的成长。在孕中期遭受地震的母亲所生的婴儿，其胎龄（LGA）的可能性要高1.8％，这比7％的LGA新生儿的基线要大。报告的影响因母亲的社会经济状况而异，相对较贫穷的智利母亲更容易受到地震的影响。解释这些结果的可能机制可能通过改变糖尿病女性的发病率而起作用。我们在这方面提供间接证据。患有糖尿病的母亲更容易生大胎龄的婴儿。地震暴露增加了受影响人群中糖尿病的发病率，社会经济地位较低的女性中观察到的对糖尿病的影响相对较高。