“…Two policies benefitting low-income women in particular were associated with lower rates of LBW, including expanded Medicaid eligibility for family planning and coverage of abortion services for Medicaid-eligible women by use of public funds. This finding is in line with previous work demonstrating not only improvements in maternal and child health outcomes, but financial benefits for states choosing to enact these policies (Gerstein & Markus, 2013;Lindrooth & McCullough, 2007;Meier &McFarlane, 1994). Some conflicting evidence regarding the direct impact of restricting Medicaid funding for abortion on birth weight suggests associations may be owing to unobserved characteristics of states with legislative restrictionsdthose associated with both enactment of funding restrictions and with LBWdand we cannot discount this possible explanation for our finding as well (Currie, Nixon, & Cole, 1996;Henshaw et al, 2009).…”