A baby lies in a metal-bar cot drinking from a bottle perched on his pillow in a Tokyo orphanage. There's no one to hold and feed him or offer words of comfort.

The director of the institution, nurses scurrying busily around him, says he would like extra time and staff to pay more attention to the 70 babies and toddlers under his care, but it's not going to happen.

"I wish we could hold them in our arms, one by one," says Yoshio Imada. "Some people call this abuse. It's a difficult situation."