Comparing long-term educational effects of two early childhoodhealth interventions

We compare the educational effects of two medical protocols that mitigate long-term conse-quences of prematurity or low birth weight. The two protocols are Traditional Care (TC), whichuses incubators, and Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) which replaces incubators for 24-hour skin-to-skin contact between newborns and caregivers. We concentrate on educational outcomesaddressing contradictory results in previous contributions. We use a randomized controlled trialimplemented in 1993 that randomly assigned children to either TC or KMC. OLS results suggestthat KMC children spent more time in preschool, had fewer temporary school absences, andshowed lower math test scores. Both groups observed similar effects on high-school graduationand language test scores. We correct for attrition, small sample, and multiple outcomes. Effectson preschool attendance and school absenteeism are robust, particularly for more vulnerableinfants (birth weight≤1,800 g). The other effects lose statistical significance due to multipleoutcome testing or attrition corrections.