The Health Impacts of Hospital Delivery Practices
研究发现，在剖腹产率较高的医院分娩的婴儿出生状况更好、再入院率更低，但呼吸系统急诊就诊风险增加，表明剖腹产对婴儿健康有利有弊。
Treatment practices vary widely across hospitals, often with little connection to patients’ medical needs. We assess impacts of these differences in delivery practices at childbirth. We find that infants quasi-randomly delivered at hospitals with higher C-section rates are born in better shape and are less likely to be readmitted, with suggestive evidence of improved survival. These benefits are driven by avoidance of prolonged labors that pose risks to infant health. In contrast, these infants are more likely to visit the emergency department for respiratory-related problems, consistent with a large observational literature linking C-section to chronic reductions in respiratory health.