Estimating the effect of prenatal care on birth outcomes

Using data from official hospital abstracts on deliveries occurred in Sardinia during the years 2010 and 2011, we implemented an Augmented Inverse Probability Weighted (AIPW) model in order to study the effect of increased prenatal care during pregnancy on birth outcomes. Results showed that moderate levels of prenatal care, as measured by the number of sonograms, increase the Apgar score of the infant, while a higher number of sonograms does not have any additional marginal effect on the outcome.