Abstract
A national survey was performed to investigate the actual state of medical personnel's care and attendance to women giving birth during their first and second stages of labor in Japan. An anonymised self-writing questionnaire developed by the authors was distributed to 10, 268 postpartum inpatients and one-month postpartum outpatients, who delivered during the period from June to September of 1999 in 232 various obstetric units, including university hospitals, general hospitals, obstetrics, clinics, and midwife-run birth centers, selected by a stratified random sampling from all 47 prefectures in Japan.
Fifty nine percent of the 7, 215 women who vaginally delivered mentioned that a midwife stayed most with them during labor, with this percentage increasing to 91% when limited to women in birth centers. Of all 8, 224 births including cesarean sections, midwives attended 52.4%, while obstetricians attended 43.1%. Midwives also attended 63.2% of normal births.
The result of this study is almost consistent with another national survey conducted in 1999 on birth attendants which used medical personnel as subjects. However, according to Japanese vital statistics based on birth certificate data for the same year, 97.2% and 2.8% births were delivered by obstetricians and midwives respectively, and are found not to be reflective of the present state.
