Tag - pregnancy

 
 

PREGNANCY

Epidurals during childbirth have long been uncommon in Japan, though they have been growing more popular in recent years.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jan 14, 2025
Tokyo plans to subsidize epidurals, but are hospitals ready?
If all goes to plan, Tokyo will be the first to offer prefecture-level financial support for epidurals.
A subsidy for epidural childbirths was one of Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike's campaign promises when she ran for her position last year.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 7, 2025
Tokyo looks to ease the pain — both physical and financial — of childbirth
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is looking to begin offering a subsidy for epidural childbirths in fiscal 2025.
A member of the medical staff treats a woman with COVID-19 next to her four-day-old baby at a hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, in November 2021.
WORLD / Science & Health
Dec 27, 2024
COVID pregnancies may have boosted autism risk, study shows
"There’s something really going on,” pediatric infectious diseases physician Karin Nielsen says. "We don’t want to alarm the world, but that’s what our data are showing.”
An Afghan midwife prepares a report in the nursery section at a private hospital in Kabul on Dec. 10.  The Taliban's supreme leader is reportedly behind a ban on women studying midwifery and nursing at training institutes across the country, already among the worst in the world for deaths in childbirth.
WORLD / Society
Dec 16, 2024
Afghan student nurses crushed as Taliban block last hopes of a job
Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban have barred women from university and most jobs, and imposed tight restrictions on their lives.
Brain adaptations during pregnancy may enhance efficiency rather than cause loss of function, similar to transformations seen during adolescence and menopause.
COMMENTARY
Nov 29, 2024
We’re finally starting to understand the pregnant brain
Brain adaptations during pregnancy may enhance efficiency rather than cause loss of function, similar to transformations seen during adolescence and menopause.
Blogger and marketer Alina Rzhanova, 33, adjusts clothes of her 8-month-old son, Igor, during an interview in their apartment in the city of Yaroslavl, Russia, on Oct. 3.
WORLD / Society
Nov 13, 2024
Russia bans 'child-free propaganda' to try to boost birth rate
Official data released in September in Russia put the birth rate at its lowest in a quarter of a century while mortality rates are up as Moscow's war in Ukraine rages on.
Feminist Women's Health Center employees Sincere Porter, Naomi Desta-Bell, Habeebah Yasin and Kwajelyn Jackson following a vigil and rally for abortion rights and in response to the deaths of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, who died of complications during pregnancy, in Atlanta on Sept. 28.
WORLD / Society
Oct 20, 2024
Advocates hope U.S. election will mark turning point for Black maternal health
Such concerns go beyond abortion rights, an issue that has galvanized women since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in 2022.
Interest has grown worldwide in the genetic testing of embryos for couples trying to conceive through IVF.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Oct 17, 2024
Testing for desirable embryos inconsistent and unreliable, new study says
In recent years, interest has grown worldwide in the genetic testing of embryos among couples trying to conceive through IVF.
If the number of births falls at a similar pace in the second half of 2024, the annual total could fall below 700,000 for the first time.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 31, 2024
Births in Japan hit record low for January to June period
If the number of births falls at a similar pace in the second half of 2024, the annual total could fall below 700,000 for the first time.
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump dances during a campaign rally at the Cambria County War Memorial Arena in Johnstown, Pennsylvania,  on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 31, 2024
Trump moves to contain fallout of abortion and IVF rows
The ex-president has been under fire from conservatives over an announcement that in a second term he would ensure free in vitro fertilization.
The Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology has expanded the scope of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to include diseases that manifest in adulthood.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Aug 29, 2024
More PGD tests performed after gynecology group widens scope of procedure
More than twice as many applications for screening have been approved after diseases that manifest in adulthood were included in the tests in 2022.
Revised guidelines on municipal governments' postpartum care programs will likely include care for women who temporarily stay at their parents' homes to give birth.
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2024
Japan to revise guidelines for local government postpartum care
The upcoming revision comes as some local governments face difficulties implementing postpartum care projects by themselves.
Women with children interact in a lounge at a postpartum care facility in Ikoma, Nara Prefecture.
JAPAN
Aug 6, 2024
Private companies increasingly expanding into postpartum care
Companies such as Nestle Japan and Mitsubishi Estate have launched initiatives aimed at mothers and children
The Mefeego pill pack
JAPAN / Society
Aug 5, 2024
Japan's health ministry considers wider availability for abortion pill
Currently, the medication can only be administered in hospitals with inpatient capabilities.
A medical technician selects eggs for an in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedure Paris in 2019.
WORLD / Society
Jul 25, 2024
IVF mistakes are opening a new front in the fight over reproductive rights
The $40 billion U.S. industry is expected to triple in size over the next decade as more people delay having babies until later in life.
A woman holds a baby wrapped in a blanket as displaced Palestinians leave an area in east Khan Younis after the Israeli army issued a new evacuation order for parts of the city on July 1.
WORLD
Jul 10, 2024
Gaza's pregnant women defy odds to give birth and protect their babies
For new mothers in Gaza, giving birth in a warzone is just the first step on a traumatic journey marked by constant fear and anxiety.
Police investigate the site where a newborn baby was found abandoned in a trash bin in Tokyo's Nerima Ward on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jul 4, 2024
Tokyo woman arrested on suspicion of attempting to murder newborn baby
A baby boy was found abandoned in a trash bin in Nerima Ward. The suspect partially denied the charges, stating she did not intend to kill the baby.
Nikon's new microscope specialized for intracytoplasmic sperm injection, a fertility treatment
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jul 3, 2024
Nikon develops microscope for fertility treatment
The product reduces the number of operational steps involved in intracytoplasmic sperm injection by about 75%.
Each week Neha Mankani comes by boat ambulance to Baba, an old fishing settlement near Karachi, and reportedly one of the world's most crowded islands with some 6,500 people crammed into 0.15 square kilometers.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jul 2, 2024
Midwife on the front line of climate change on Pakistan's islands
Climate change is swelling the surrounding seas off the megacity of Karachi and baking the land with rising temperatures.
Anti-abortion protesters outside the Supreme Court in Washington on June 14.
WORLD / Society
Jun 19, 2024
'Unthinkable' normalized two years after U.S. abortion ruling
From medics to single mothers to abused minors, Americans from all walks of life have been affected.

Longform

Atsuyoshi Koike, the president and CEO of Rapidus, says there is a “sense of urgency” when it comes to Japan’s efforts in manufacturing semiconductors. “We have to make sure we are successful,” he says.
Atsuyoshi Koike’s big game: Fourth down and 2 nanometers to go