Discharge on the day of birth, parental response and health and schooling outcomes

Exploiting the Danish roll-out of same-day discharge policies, we find that treated newborns have a higher probability of first-month hospital readmission. This result may suggest that parents substitute postpartum hospital stays with readmissions. However, a same-day discharge also increases the number of mother and child general practitioner contacts in the first three years and decreases children’s ninth grade GPA. Longer-run effects are strongest for at-risk children. Complementing our analyses of administrative data with survey data, we show that a same-day discharge impacts health and schooling in the longer run through both its effects on children’s health and on parental investments.