Table 1.

Difference in the characteristics before and after (n = 20,927)

	Before Free Maternity	After free maternity	Diff (After – Before)	se (mean)
Dependent variable
Early neonatal mortality	0.0157	0.0171	0.0014	0.0021
Neonatal mortality	0.0234	0.0235	0.0001	0.0025
Intermediate outcome variables (Delivery care)
Delivery through CS	0.0646	0.0772	0.0126**	0.0041
Birth in a public hospital	0.4164	0.4840	0.0676***	0.0107
Assistance by skilled assistants at delivery (Assisted by Doctor /nurse/midwife)	0.5567	0.5980	0.0414***	0.0106
Intermediate outcome variables (Neonatal care/ factors)
Low birth weight	0.0212	0.0210	−Done0.0002	0.0024
Independent variables
Maternal characteristics (socioeconomic, demographic, biological)
Age of the mother at the birth of the baby
Less than 20	0.1502	0.1427	-0.0076	0.0059
20–34	0.7248	0.7242	−0.0006	0.0071
35 years and above	0.1250	0.1331	−0.0081	0.0054
Age of the mother at first birth (adolescent)
18 years and below	0.4535	0.4497	−0.0038	0.0081
Preceding birth intervals (excluding first-order births)
Less than 2 years	0.2002	0.1628	−0.0374***	0.0073
Parity
Grand multipara	0.3975	0.3874	−0.0101	0.0080
Multiple pregnancy	0.0270	0.0308	0.0039	0.0027
Ethnicity
Kalenjin	0.1515	0.1570	0.0055	0.0059
Kamba	0.0777	0.0800	0.0023	0.0044
Kikuyu	0.1159	0.1037	−0.0122**	0.0052
Luhya	0.1200	0.1131	−0.0069	0.0053
Luo	0.1053	0.1017	−0.0037	0.0050
Somali	0.0824	0.0796	−0.0028	0.0045
Other	0.3473	0.3650	0.0176*	0.0079
Religion
Roman Catholic	0.1840	0.1819	−0.0021	0.0063
Other Christian	0.6196	0.6126	−0.0070	0.0079
Muslim	0.1670	0.1719	0.0049	0.0061
Other	0.0278	0.0314	0.0037	0.0027
Neonatal factors
Gender of the baby
Male	0.5067	0.5095	0.0028	0.0082

***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1; statistical significance next to the estimates refers to the differences in the indicators before and after the policy