education, marital status and prenatal care. This pattern was evident for both blacks and whites. However, given the high prevalence of LBW among blacks, this effect likely has a larger impact on LBW among black infants. This research also suggests that prenatal development and growth may be a critical period that has life-long consequences. Almond and Chay172 provide another example of intergenerational effects. They compared black women born in 1961–1963 with those born 1967–69. This latter group had benefited from the economic gains and greater access to medical care that were attendant to the Civil Rights movement and other social policies of the 1960s. They found that black women born in 1967–69 had lower risk factors as adults and were less likely to have infants that were LBW and had low Apgar scores.
