The present study was performed to elucidate the actual evaluations of cares by women who recieve them during pregnancy, delivery and postpartum periods.
A self-reporting questionnaire developed by the authors was used and the reliability andvalidity were examined. The subjects were 816 normal courses of postpartum women in 26different institutions.
As the results, throughout the periods of pregnancy, delivery and postpartum, the institutegiven the highest score of evaluation was midwives' clinics while general hospitals receivedthe lowest score in all three periods.
Regarding the degree of satisfaction with care, the highest was midwives' clinics, followedby obstetricians' clinics, university hospitals and general hospitals. These scores given tocares in each period and the total degree of satisfaction with cares throughout the periodswere significantly higher in midwives' clinics than those in other institutions.
The score of repeaters and the score of persons introduced were the highest midwives'clinics, followed by obstetricians' clinics, general hospitals and the lowest were universityhospitals. Significant differences were observed among average values of institution.
The parameters for predicting the degree of satisfaction with care were scores of cares inthe pregnancy, delivery and postpartum periods. Similary, parameters for predicting the score of repeaters were afore-mentioned care scores of each period.

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The purpose of this study was to systematically describe the dimensions of pain during theprogression of inducted (N=16), augmented (N=34) and spontaneous labor (N=105). Prospectiveassessment of in-labor pain was performed using a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) whenthe cervix was dilated 0-3cm, 4-7cm, 8-9crn, 10cm and third stage. Retrospective assessmentof labor pain was performed 24-48 hours postpartum using the VAS.
The findings of this study are summarized as follows.
1.Primiparas of inducted labor had most intense pain in dilation of 8-9cm, and multiparasof that had most intense pain in Stage II of three groups.
2. The subjects of inducted labor had more pain in Stage III than others.
3. The intensity of pain of augmented labor was midway between pain of inducted laborand spontaneous labor.
4. The subjects of augmented and spontaneous labor tended to deflate the intensity of their labor pain.
5. The subjects of inducted labor tended to inflate the intensity of their labor pain.It is suggested that quality care should be taken to ensure that women in inducted labor have less intense pain.

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The objective of this research is to determine how the two fetal heart rate measurementmethods, intermittent ausculation (AUS) and electric fetal monitoring (EFM), differ in theireffects on midwives' monitoring activities.
A checklist prepared by the author was used in observation of monitoring women in laborconducted by 16 midwives at a private hospital in Tokyo. This checklist regarded each 30-minutes observation period as one “scene”. Data for 33 AUS scenes and 34 EFM sceneswere used in comparative analysis.
All 16 midwives engarged in both types of fetal heart rate measurement. No differencewere recognized among the midwives in their years of experience, the number of times theyconducted monitoring or the amounts of contact they had with the women in labor.
Among the results of analysis, it was found that with EFM it was more common forpalpation examination to not coincide with contractons, there was less frequency of askingthe women in labor about their feeling or desires and the number of directions given by the midwives increased. Also, with EFM, internal examinations were conducted with greaterfrequency and in the area of care, there was less frequency of back massage and changingthe position of the women in labor, while the women themselves had less freedom to assume their desired positions.

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The purpose of this study was to describe what happened during the interactions between.preterm infant's mothers and nurses in the NICU, by identifying the meanings of the interactions.
This research design was the qualitative, descriptive study. The subjects were consistedof 7 mothers with preterm infants and 26 nurses. The data was gathered using the participantobservation and the interviews technique. The participant observation was conductedwhen the mothers interacted with the nurses in the NICU and the both were interviewedusing the semi-constructed questionaire. The data was analysed by a qualitative method.
Four core categories were derived from the data. The categories were “freedom andrestriction”“knowing their infants”“being with their infants”“mother's love”. They promotedto establish the relationships between the mothers and their infants under the conditions ofthe NICU. The results also suggested that the professional support by the nurses was impor-tant for mothers to know their infants.

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