The purpose of this study was to understand and describe the experience of known fetal malformation from the perspective of a woman who had lived through this experience. Quali-tative methodology of phenomenology was selected as the philosophical basis used in the study. A woman who had been evaluated for fetal malformation consented to participate.
She described her experience of known fetal malformation as a complication of her pregnancy, At times she thought of hoping her baby would live, but, at other times she thought of hoping her baby would die. She described how she coped with this situation by extending her internal and external worlds. And she thought of how her own life had been expanded by this event. She believed the baby would live with her always, and together they would extend their external world through trust and open minds.

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Spontaneous abortion is the most frequent of all pregnancy losses, but only a few empirical researches have been done in Japan. The purpose of this survey is to explore the women's actual mental states after spontaneous abortion. Forty nine subjects who have experienced spontaneous abortion and agreed to participate the survey were asked by a questionnaire and the Japanese version State-Trait Anxiety Inventory test (STAI). The questionnaire was consisted of three parts: sentence completion, likert type scale of mental states which was developed by authors, and profile.
The feelings after spontaneous abortion were expressed and classified using sentence completionas follows: astonishment, shock, sadness, lonesomeness, fatigue, despondency, emotional instability, minor depression symptoms, unhappiness, sorriness, regret, guilty, feeling of failure, ambivalence between denial and acceptance, and so on. These feelings decreased three months later except a few women, and they expressed the feelings that there was no other way but to accept and wish to the next pregnancy. The four phases of grieving processeswhich is commonly used as a mourning process were entangled in this survey.
The result of the sentence completion was corroborated by the scale of mental states that women were specific psychological state after miscarriage and it was similar with grieving process which is often reported in English literature.
Many subjects expressed self-reproach or self-blame such as: I couldn't do anything for my baby, feel sorry for infant, feel sorry for husband, and feel sorry for husband's folk, feel sorry for colleague because of my absence, and so on.
The average of the Japanese version STAI was significantly higher than the average of the adult women's group. The number of the very high and high group of the STAI is gradually decreased after about three months later.
Japanese women's mental state after spontaneous abortion are confirmed as grief process by Japanese women's real words in this survey.

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The object of this quosi-experimental study was to clarify the effect on making structural and functional alterations of the bony birth canal by postural change of a woman.
The subjects examined consisted of 131 pregnant women. The data used were collected by external pelvic measurement taken in various postures regarded as important in delivery, and analyzed anatomico-functionally to know a pliability of the bony birth canal. The morphological alterations of the pelvis were brought about by change of her posture.
(1) In a squatting posture, the upper part of the pelvis major was decreased in breadth due to the hinge movement of each hip bone which took place about on the ilio-pectineal lines, so that the distance between the right and left ischial tuberosities could be increased.(2) In asitting posture with the knees apart on a chair, the right and left ischial spines went away from each other, because the weight transmitted to the sacrum by the superimposed part of the vertebral colums tended to cause the sacral apex to rotate backwards.(3) In a four-foot kneelig posture, all diameters of the pelvis minor were increased, because the downward movement of the sacrum occurred in the sacro-iliac joints which were sightly loosened.
When a woman in labor changes her posture in each period of the delivery, some diameters of her bony birth canal are increased by the moulding. If she does so, it can guess that her fetal head go through the bony birth canal more easily.

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