Font Size
BOOKLET to Provide Basic Information Regarding Health Effects of Radiation (3rd edition)

Pregnancy and Birth Survey: What Has Become Clear (2/2)

Pregnancy and Birth Survey: What Has Become Clear (2/2)_Figure

For questions concerning pregnant women’s depressive tendencies, respondents who replied that they tend to feel depressed and/or that they are not interested in things have been decreasing. However, those who gave birth within one to two years after the earthquake showed higher depressive tendencies even after four years compared with those who gave birth later.

According to the "Healthy Parents and Children 21" (a national campaign to promote improvement of health standards of mothers and children), the percentage of postnatal depression evaluated using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale was 8.4% in FY2013 and 9.8% in FY2017 nationwide. The percentage estimated from the results of the FY2019 Pregnancy and Birth Survey was 10.1% (reference used for the calculation: Mishina H, et al. Pediatr Int. 2009; 51: 48).

The FY2019 Pregnancy and Birth Survey also revealed that respondents considering another pregnancy accounted for 51.3%. Since the FY2012 survey, more than half of the respondents wish to have more children. For reference, respondents who have been married for less than ten years and plan to have a child accounted for 60% (or 51% among those who already have any children) in the Fourteenth Japanese National Fertility Survey in 2010 and 57% (or 50% among those who already have any children) in the Fifteenth Japanese National Fertility Survey in 2015.

  • Included in this reference material on March 31, 2015
  • Updated on March 31, 2022
Back to Top