The purpose of this study is to investigate the processes of care ability acquirement-especially the ability of care of women in pregnancy and childbearing-and to find factors influencing these processes. We followed up for one year 92 midwives who graduated recently from three midwifery schools respectively, national, public. More than half of the subjects worked at an institute with 200 to 999 beds. The average age of the subjects is 23.5, and 34.7% of them have experiences as a nurse, having worked for an average of 2.6 years.
The majority of the subjects attained a good level of care ability after one year. However, many of them have not had experience in resuscitation of a neonate in a state of asphyxia and in the care of a high-risk neonate.
The number of those who find satisfaction in their own way of working increases as time goes on, and at the same time there is an increase in the number of items of care ability in correlation with the satisfaction level. One month after they start working, The achievement level of care ability is in correlation with their impessions that their working places is friendly, and is six months after, is in correlation with their impression that there are good exchanges of opinions among the staff.

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The purpose of this study was to identify mother's concerns and their related factors in the postpartum period. The subjects were 147 mothers in Sapporo who didn't have problems in breast feeding. They were asked to respond to the same questionnaire three times; on the 3rd day, on the 10th day and 4 weeks after their delivery. The questionnaire consisted of 48 items on a 5-point scale. Furthermore, they were requested to respond to the manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS) in the first survey.
Most of the mother's strong concerns were indicated on the 3rd day in the early postpartum period; they were “Husband's support”and “Husband's help ofr infant care”. The mother's concerns were significantly high in primiparas, women with high anxiety, and ‘roming-in’ mothers.

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In order to identify the changes on sleep pattern during pregnancy, 289 pregnant women were studied.
Subjective estimation form was developed including 3 major categories, namely, “Factors Relating to Sleep”, “Factors Relating on Awaking Feeling”, “Satisfaction resulting from Sleep”. Influencing factors were also collected.
It was found that at the first trimester the desire for sleep increased. Towards the third trimester, feeling of difficult to fall in asleep, insufficient length of sleep, awaking during sleep were increased, and as a result, dissatisfaction towards sleep increased.
Among the primigravidae, rejective feeling to the awaking during sleep is strong in the first trimester, but gradually decreased toward second and third trimester. While rejective feeling of the multigravidae was just the same ratio with the third trimester of the primigravidae. This evidence suggests the primigravidae needs more time for adjustment to the pregnancy.
It was found physical discomfort due to the pregnancy influencing on satisfaction. Support provided by the family is another important influencing factor, to fall in sleep, depth of sleep, and feeling of satisfaction.

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The task of midwifery education is increasing with the recent diversification in the requirements of mother-and-child health care. However, the one-year curriculum of midwifery education is constantly confronted with the problem of overload. We examined the state of adjustment of 292 students at 16national institutions ofr midwifery education across Japan to the current curricula provided by these institutions according to Cornell Medical Index, Manifest Anxiety Scale, and questionnaire responses of the students obtained at the beginning, mid-term, and end of the school years 1981-1983.
When the adjustment of students was assecced according to the degree of their satisfaction with the school to which they were admitted, those with greater motivation at admission were better adjusted, but the degree of adjustment was not related to the scheduling of the night time practice of the manner of combination of practice and class room work.“Too much work” was indicated consistently as the greatest cause of stress, most frequently at mid-term, but the responses of “fatigue” and “uncomfortable relationship with class mates” were frequent especially at the beginning of the school year. There were no significant changes in the frequency distribution of categories of CMI or stages of MAS. As for seasonal changes, the neurotic tendency of CMI and high anxiety level of MAS were observed frequently at mid-term, followed in order by the end and the beginning of the year. The frequency of the high anxiety level of MAS was significantly high (p<0.001) in the students with a neurotic tendency according to CMI.
We reviewed our curriculum on the basis of these results to improve the students' motivation level and the efficiency of midwifery education.

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