Using longitudinal data on a cohort of over 4,000 children from four low‐ and middle‐income countries, we document the association between birth spacing and child growth trajectories. We find declines in child height at age 1 among children who are born within three years of an older sibling. However, we also observe catch‐up growth for closely spaced children as they age. We find no evidence that catch‐up growth is driven by remedial health investments after birth, suggesting substitutability in underlying biological processes. We also find that very widely spaced children (preceding birth interval of more than seven years) are similar in height at age 1 as children who are spaced three to seven years apart, but outgrow their more closely spaced counterparts as they age. However, further sibling comparisons suggest that the growth premium that is observed for very widely spaced children may be driven by unobserved confounding factors.

中文翻译：

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生育间隔和儿童健康轨迹

利用来自四个低收入和中等收入国家的4,000多名儿童的纵向数据，我们记录了出生间隔和儿童成长轨迹之间的关系。我们发现同龄大三岁以内的孩子在1岁时身高有所下降。但是，我们还观察到间隔紧密的儿童随着年龄的增长会追赶性增长。我们发现没有证据表明追赶性增长是由出生后的补救性医疗投资推动的，这表明潜在的生物过程具有可替代性。我们还发现，间隔很大的孩子（出生间隔超过7年）在1岁时的身高与间隔3到7岁的孩子相似，但是随着年龄的增长，间隔越来越远的孩子长大。然而，