Japan experiences rising rate of low weight newborns

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tmarie at 12:42 PM JST - 21st February

I tend to think it is women who are scared of getting fat - and as metioned the pressure their doctors give them. It is something like over 7 kg the doctors tell you are too fat and it os bad for the baby. 7 kg is only 15 pounds and I think your average "western" gains about 22. I certainly don't agree with many western women's notion that they can eat what they like but I think being called fat after 7kg is shocking.

Not to mention that most pregnant women (and many women in Japan) have no idea what a healthy diet is. Skinny fat, no muscle tone for hte most part. Not healthy for an expecting mother.
cleo at 01:37 PM JST - 21st February

For both my pregnancies I was told to keep the weight gain to within about 7 kilos. For the first pregnancy I floundered around like a whale with an added 12-13 kilos, for the second I managed to keep it down to around 8. Both babies were bigger than average, and the second one bigger than the first. Getting the extra weight off after the second birth was more difficult and took longer than after the first. I think the thing is to eat sensibly and not worry too much about the kilos.
OneForAll at 04:11 PM JST - 21st February

Good advice cleo.
ptolemy at 04:56 PM JST - 21st February

Fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal nicotine addiction perhaps? I've seen plenty of mothers to be here sucking down the booze and sucking on cancer sticks.
Disillusioned at 06:22 PM JST - 21st February

It's a shame nobody has made a connection between fetal deformations and the amount of heavy metals in seafood. Yes, alcohol and tobacco contribute, but I would put my money on seafood, especially uncooked seafood. I won't point the finger at whale and dolphin meat cos it is not consumed by a large demographic of the society, but the small fish eaten whole are killers. The metals are concentrated in the spinal columns and blood lines of small fish, which are consumed whole in Japan. I've seen cats get very sick from eating small fish in Australia, therefore, the amount of bait consumed as food in Japan must contribute to fetal deformations.
AlfGarnett at 07:06 PM JST - 21st February

My Elsie smoked like a chimley all through her pregnancy and our daughter were 8 Pounds.

I reckon these women is pressured by society to not look fat, so they is scared to put and weight and that. I reckon all this stuff about a woman not smoking and drinking is daft. In my days nearly all the women smoked and were on the booze.
flammenwerfer at 08:16 PM JST - 21st February

Tmarie is on the money, I saw the head nurse verbally chew out an expectant mother in front of all the others in the waiting room of an obstetrics department of the hospital for being too fat and gaining too much weight. I kid you not, the poor woman was on the verge of tears and apparently it happens all the time. Woman are genuinely scared here of putting on too much weight in fear of enduring the wrath of the nurses. Now they are complaining they are too thin....
outofmydepth at 11:48 PM JST - 21st February

also, the mothers are way too thin to begin with. it is sad.
sydenham at 12:09 AM JST - 22nd February

flammerwerfer, that's malarkey.

You're reading too much into one incident. Are you sure it was even about the weight? Any nurse would be sure to lose her job for chewing out a patient in front of everyone. I've never seen that in my whole eleven years and three babies in Japan.

It has more to do with women just wanting more and more to be thin in general than it does with pressure from doctors and nurses. The pressure is there, but women stay thin because it has become the societal norm for Japanese women ever since Seiko Matsuda made the Burikko the it girl. Guys have come to expect it, and girls too.

Anybody remember the skater Midori Ito back in the 80's? She was the norm. Now? Asada Mao. That's the difference.
illsayit at 02:42 PM JST - 22nd February

I think that the medical caregivers, and ESpecially the women caregivers are very high strung about gaining too much weight. They tell the women that it is more difficult for the babies passage at birth. Making the scariest part, scary. I have heard a male doctor reprimand a pregnant lady for not eating enough, once, ii kagen, is what was said. I think the whole attitude to birth in most countries, has taken a wrong path, and made it a medical problem, rather than the natural occurence that it is. Eating sensibly is important, but limiting your hunger is out of whack. Any weight gained through pregnancy is possible to loose. As for what is taken into the body when pregnant, like food, it ought to be sensible, but the results shown by statistics that it can be detrimental, are not correct either, imo.
Tahoochi at 03:53 PM JST - 24th February

It's a shame nobody has made a connection between fetal deformations and the amount of heavy metals in seafood.

Disillusioned: Japanese people have been eating seafood, whole and raw fish for thousands of years, whereas this article talks about the last 30 years. And where is fetal deformation mentioned in the article? Anyways, my wife is 6 months right now, and as I understand it, every woman and child is different, so what's good for one may not be for another. I wish the Japanese doctors would judge the health of mother and child on a case-by-case basis and not hold everyone to the same 7kg rule.
kirakira25 at 03:38 PM JST - 26th February

In both my pregnancies I was lucky enough not to gain too much - about 8 kg with the first and 10 with the second. But I had many friends who went up by up to 18kgs and the doctors here were going crazy with them - everyone I knew - including myself - seemed to be told that "8kgs was the maximum limit" regardless of their ethnicity, pre-pregnancy size or health condition.

It made me so angry to see people stressed out and worried about their weight during pregnancy, even trying to diet! In mine and my friends experiences to date, you are pretty much pre-programmed to put on a certain amount of weight regardless of how much or how little you eat, and as long as you are eating healthily, and you and the baby are doing well, it should not make a shred of difference how much weight you are gaining.

I agree - focus on issues like smoking during pregnancy, and heavy metal poisoning - those are equally if not more important. And lose some of the ridiculous superstitions around pregnancy here - I was berated by a woman for not wrapping my belly in a kind of obi/shroud thing because the baby would catch cold - it was August and over 30 degrees! My friend was told she shouldn`t swim in the sea on her trip to Australia when she was pregnant "because the baby would drink the seawater and get sick"!
BigInJapan at 03:53 PM JST - 26th February

've never seen that in my whole eleven years and three babies in Japan. Sydenham, you may live here for long, but you haven't seen everything. There can be a huge pressure on the expecting mother to loose weight, and explicitly ordered to take diet. I know that it does happen, because we experienced it, and I know that it is not rare from hearing stories of other families.
illsayit at 07:16 PM JST - 26th February

I do not agree about focusing on issues that kira would say are important either. Like....there is a huge list besides the 2 examples given.....and if you start on that, you are not even interested in being pregnant.
kirakira25 at 09:46 PM JST - 26th February

Erm...I meant those just as examples, not an exhaustive list and I also meant the researchers should focus on it not the pregnant women. We owe it to ourselves and our babies to be as informed as possible about what is and isn`t safe in pregnancy, but we rely on the experts to provide us with that information.

The link between low-birth weight due to under-nutrition of the fetus and later health complications in the grown child has been well-documented (e.g. DJP Barker 1992, Fetal and Infant Origins of Adult Disease, BMJ) so I just wonder why Japanese medical professionals are continuing to pressure women to limit their weight gain when the evidence against it has been published.