Tag - pregnancy

 
 

PREGNANCY

Freezing one's eggs with the aim of having children in the future can be quite costly. It is thought to vary between ¥300,000 and ¥600,000 on average.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 11, 2024
Tokyo to continue offering subsidy to women seeking to freeze eggs
The metropolitan government says it will subsidize all who fit the criteria despite applicants exceeding budgeted spots by nearly tenfold.
Electron micrograph of Treponema pallidum, the causative agent of syphilis
JAPAN / Science & Health
Feb 26, 2024
Syphilis cases hit record high for third straight year in Japan
While the precise reasons for the surge in reported cases remain unclear, experts have identified several potential contributing factors.
Tokyo Medical and Dental University Hospital in Tokyo. A team including researchers from the university said it had created miniaturized organs closely resembling the human placenta.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Feb 9, 2024
Japanese team creates miniaturized human placentas
Researchers expect the organs will help with understanding how viruses infect the placenta.
University students experience taking care of a child at the house of a company employee taking child care leave in Osaka.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 5, 2024
1 in 5 Japanese university students do not want children: survey
The largest cohort at 57.4% cited "a lack of confidence about raising a child" as their reason.
People sort relief supplies, including sanitary napkins, diapers and baby formula, in Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Sunday, over a month after a New Year's Day quake hit the area.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 5, 2024
Emergency maternity and baby supplies lacking in parts of Japan
The study showed that while 82.5% of municipalities stocked sanitary napkins, only 11.9% kept underwear for women.
Aeon is aiming to encourage male workers to take child care leave. While almost all of its female employees currently take child care leave when they have a child, the rate for male employees is only 15%.
BUSINESS
Feb 2, 2024
Aeon employees to receive 100% of income during child care leave
The retailer aims to gradually roll out the program from March to some 150 group companies.
New research estimates that nearly 65,000 pregnancies have resulted from rape in the 14 states that imposed total abortion bans after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2024
Post-Roe America’s national shame: 65,000 forced pregnancies
New data has been filling in the picture of what access to reproductive health care looks like in the U.S. And the image forming is increasingly grim.
Jiho Yoshimizu (right), representative of a support group for Vietnamese trainees in Japan, listens to a Vietnamese trainee seen in the monitors speaking online in October about her experience of having been instructed by an intermediary organization to undergo contraceptive treatment.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 22, 2024
Vietnamese trainees in Japan pressured to have contraceptive treatment
In many cases, intermediary organizations advised Vietnamese trainees that they would be sent home if they got pregnant.
An Afghan woman holds her newborn child at a maternity hospital in Khost, Afghanistan. According to the latest World Health Organization figures, from 2017, 638 women die in Afghanistan for every 100,000 viable births, compared with 19 in the United States.
WORLD / Society
Dec 28, 2023
For women in Afghanistan, every birth carries heavy risks
Afghanistan is among the worst countries in the world for deaths in childbirth, "with one woman dying every two hours," according to the U.N.
Local media in China exposed a secretive surrogacy service that may be helping to deliver more than 300 babies a year.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 27, 2023
Chinese media expose prompts probe into illegal baby surrogacy
Despite Beijing’s repeated crackdowns and an outright ban, underground surrogacy services continue to thrive in China.
Human Rights Watch Asia program officer Teppei Kasai (center) speaks during a news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 15, 2023
Japan women prisoners suffer serious abuse: Human Rights Watch
Handcuffs during pregnancy, separation from newborn babies and insufficient care for elderly inmates are among the abuses suffered, the rights group said.
Chinese working women, like in most countries, bear an unfair and disproportional burden when it comes to family care and household work.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 10, 2023
Gender roles and explaining China’s fertility drought
Because the focus has been on the impact of high childrearing costs, the career penalty on women when they have a child has largely been overlooked.
The ¥100,000 financial aid comes hand-in-hand with consultation support that encourages expecting mothers to attend meetings in their municipalities throughout their pregnancy where they can ask for advice and information on childbirth.
JAPAN / Society
Nov 9, 2023
Japan's cash handouts for pregnant women to be made permanent in 2025
The plan entails handing out a total of ¥100,000 to all residents of Japan who are pregnant.
Satoko Nagamura, a representative of Kodomap (right), hands a letter of request to Koji Takahashi, a senior official at the Children and Families Agency, in Tokyo Tuesday.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Nov 7, 2023
Japan hospital denies LGBTQ woman support for IVF pregnancy
Japanese hospitals are wary of accepting pregnant women unconditionally due to a lack of legislation related to conception via donated sperm.
Frozen donor sperm at Hara Medical Clinic in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward
JAPAN / Science & Health
Oct 22, 2023
Woman becomes pregnant via IVF donor sperm after husband's death
The incident has raised concerns over the child's legal father, as infertility treatments in Japan are usually limited to married couples.
The baby hatch at Jikei Hospital in the city of Kumamoto
JAPAN / Society
Sep 28, 2023
Tokyo hospital hopes to launch baby hatch next year
San-ikukai Hospital is preparing to set up a baby hatch next spring or later, along with a system to allow women to give births confidentially.
An image of a fetus on the screen of a portable ultrasound system.
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 15, 2023
The world’s first artificial womb is on the way
The artificial placentas are intended to help struggling prematurely born infants develop much like they would in the prenatal environment.
If you have a specific birth plan in mind, like giving birth at home, it's important to make sure the clinic you use offers that option.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Aug 14, 2023
Giving birth in Japan? Here’s what you need to know.
Giving birth can be overwhelming — even more so if you don’t understand the local language or know the steps you need to take.
Prachi Gupta (left) after the birth of her first child in 2018
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Aug 14, 2023
For foreign expecting mothers in Japan, a struggle over maternity norms
Different expectations over things like natural births and weight gain can cause anxieties for non-Japanese.
As many as half of women with postpartum depression go undiagnosed.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 9, 2023
New postpartum depression pill is a vital breakthrough
Pharma companies seem to be finally listening to the female half of the population.

Longform

A statue of "Dragon Ball" character Goku stands outside the offices of Bandai Namco in Tokyo. The figure is now as recognizable as such characters as Mickey Mouse and Spider-Man.
Akira Toriyama's gift to the world