We study the impact of bride kidnapping, a form of forced marriage practiced in Central Asia, on child birth weight. We expect adverse consequences from the psychosocial stress often involved in forced marriages. Birth weight is an observable outcome realized soon after marriage. We analyze survey data from rural Kyrgyzstan and use population density as an instrument to address the endogeneity of bride kidnapping. Our findings indicate that children born to kidnapped mothers are of a substantially lower birth weight than children born to mothers who are not kidnapped. This has potentially strong implications for children’s long-term development.