This paper evaluates the short-term health effects of in utero drought shock using repeated cross-section household data on Malawi. The main finding reveals that the effects of in utero harvest variability caused by rainfall shocks on child growth indices are driven by the deleterious effects of negative rainfall deviations, namely droughts. Negative rainfall deviation during the agricultural season prior to the gestational period of a child leads to a 21.8 per cent average local level reduction in age-standardized height scores, with the counterpart positive rainfall deviation having no apparent effect. The paper also uses harvest and consumption patterns to establish an important link between early-life malnutrition and growth serving as a precursor for the fetal period programming hypothesis in the literature. The direct impact of embryonic period shocks on growth provides supportive evidence on potential interaction between nutritional and environmental pathways.

中文翻译：

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子宫内干旱冲击对农村家庭儿童生长指标影响的营养不良途径

本文使用马拉维重复的横截面家庭数据评估了子宫内干旱冲击的短期健康影响。主要发现表明，降雨冲击引起的子宫内收获变异对儿童生长指数的影响是由降雨负偏差（即干旱）的有害影响驱动的。在儿童妊娠期之前的农业季节，负降雨偏差导致当地年龄标准化身高评分平均下降 21.8%，而对应的正降雨偏差没有明显影响。该论文还使用收获和消费模式来建立生命早期营养不良与生长之间的重要联系，作为文献中胎儿期编程假设的前兆。