Ibaraki woman arrested for drowning 13-day-old son in bathtub

Monday 16th June, 11:25 AM JST

IBARAKI —

A 36-year-old woman was arrested on Sunday for allegedly drowning her 13-day-old son in the bathtub at their home in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture. Police said Junko Yamamoto, 36, allegedly killed her son around noon.

Her husband, 52, found the boy unconscious and took him to hospital. The suspect was quoted by police as saying: “I just couldn’t face up to child-raising.”

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Latest 15 of 25 Total Comments Show All

8iamhappy8 at 03:08 PM JST - 16th June

Actually, post-partum depression, if severe, can lead to infanticide.
outofmydepth at 06:58 PM JST - 16th June

let`s get more mental health resources in this country. yes, post-partum depression is not really acknowldged here. just think of all the jobs that can be created by training counselors, doctors, nurses and crisis intervention staff.
KaptainKichigai at 07:56 PM JST - 16th June

terrible. so easy to put up for adaption. How could the husband not see the symptons?
illsayit at 08:10 PM JST - 16th June

post partum what?.... excitement, should it not be. what symptons? disgusting self-centered ****** Buddhism....now that talk is interesting! Perhaps, attaining levels of quietness, is only possible for those who have their needs to some degree satisfied first, or have absolutely nothing? Anger, is in the realm of God and reality.
Coligny at 08:23 PM JST - 16th June

Illsayit... those words are english... but the way you put them together, they just make no sense...

Post partum... without any psychological councelling it's not really coming as a surprise...

It's getting boring to see how late japan is compare to the first world countries...

For energy preservation, everything started in europe in the 70' is just starting now (so around 40 years late, and they are dumb enought to pretend to be on edge and a model for the rest of the world)

For psychology... let see...1900/1920 for europe... Japan is still nowhere to be found in this game so let say around 100 years late...

Politician will continu to blame weak individual and not being a good fighting japanese while having themselve never fought for anything since they got the power from their family name... Babies will continue to die...

It a lose lose situation with only 1 player who, in order to add insult to injury consider that he should be a role model for the rest of the planet... insular inbreeding is really starting to take its toll...
gurugurugaijin at 08:53 PM JST - 16th June

she probably wasn't informed about options of adoption and similar information.

She's old enough to procreate but doesn't know what this 'adoption' thing is?

So you've assigned a name to this murderer's illness. That's great, she's still a murderer, no excuses.
mikihouse at 09:03 PM JST - 16th June

unless you don't know, a japanese girl once discharged from the hospital after 4 or 5 days after giving birth, she has to resume work at home like cleaning, shopping, taking care of her in-laws and plus taking care of the baby. And that she usually does not recieve any help from anybody.
lipscombe at 10:17 PM JST - 16th June

unless you don't know, a japanese girl once discharged from the hospital after 4 or 5 days after giving birth, she has to resume work at home like cleaning, shopping, taking care of her in-laws and plus taking care of the baby. And that she usually does not recieve any help from anybody

not always the case. I have known dozens of japanese women who gave birth and were flooded with support from their parents, husband and in-laws and seen these kids grow up healthy and happy. shame this woman didn't have the same level of support before choosing abhorrently selfish murder.
gurugurugaijin at 10:42 PM JST - 16th June

unless you don't know, a japanese girl once discharged from the hospital after 4 or 5 days after giving birth, she has to resume work at home like cleaning, shopping, taking care of her in-laws and plus taking care of the baby. And that she usually does not recieve any help from anybody.

Yeah, so it's cool beans that she killed her baby just because of that pressure.
Youdontknow at 11:27 PM JST - 16th June

This is a sad story. Japan doesn't do enough to help women with post partum depression. My wife went through this and I thank God we have friends who helped us get through it! The doctors did bugger all! Keeping the mother and baby in hospital for a week doesn't help either...yeah, nice little earner for the hospital: $4000 per week is what they get! And what did they feed my wife each day?　Rice and fish heads! YIKES! And they left us on our own during delivery for three friggin hours! I kid you not!

I hope this woman gets counseling...
cleo at 11:52 PM JST - 16th June

unless you don't know, a japanese girl once discharged from the hospital after 4 or 5 days after giving birth, she has to resume work at home like cleaning, shopping, taking care of her in-laws and plus taking care of the baby. And that she usually does not recieve any help from anybody.

Do you make this stuff up, or have you been fed a diet of O-Shin?
nycsamurai at 03:33 AM JST - 17th June

I hope this woman gets counseling

I hope she get the rope
Hoolie at 07:26 AM JST - 18th June

I guess it happens everywhere, but this kind of thing seems to happen more and more regularly in Japan.

FD - the thing to remember is that incidents like this are national level news in Japan. In other countries, something like this would be a footnote. Seeing stories like this in the news isn't what should concern you - it's when you stop seeing them.

unless you don't know, a japanese girl once discharged from the hospital after 4 or 5 days after giving birth, she has to resume work at home like cleaning, shopping, taking care of her in-laws and plus taking care of the baby. And that she usually does not recieve any help from anybody.

That is a load of complete and utter tripe. The most common practice here is for the new mother to spend her first month at her parents' (or husband's parents') home, where her relatives can help her learn to care for the child as well as taking some of the initial load off. If there are existing younger children, they will go with their mother. All of my Japanese friends and colleagues whose wives have given birth have complained of missing their wives and children during these periods.
Zen_Builder at 08:01 AM JST - 18th June

From personal experience I also go with post-partum-depression.

My Wife had a bad bout after our son was born, luckily I was on parternity leave(2 weeks at my japanese company) during that time. By law you are given 3 days to handle birth registration, etc.

Can't complain about the support we got. We attented the lectures at the muncipial offices where they told us about the depressions, etc what do to and who to contact. Actually the lectures were great as the mothers to be came from the same area and all were due the same time. We exchanged phone-numbers, e-mails, etc and had our own little support group.

Also agree that most japanese mothers-to-be will go home to their parents prior to the birth and spend 1~2 months with them.

Can't complain about the service we got at the hospital as we lived close to a great maternity clinic(10 min. walk).

Just my experience.
Zen_Builder at 08:41 AM JST - 18th June

Forgot to add something. (And sorry for the earlier double post)

Here is what I was told by my wife and others after they gave birth.

They felt that after giving birth they had problems relating to the bundle of humanity to the feeling that they had of something growing inside them for 9 months which is now gone. They felt like they lost something.

I can understand it logically but not emotionally. Being a male I was an outsider to those feelings/events only an observer to the pregnancy, just an observer of what happened to my wife but never truly understanding.

The first time I felt like a true father was when I held my son and it was major change in my life.

Just saying that the whole experience is very different between the father and mother.