This study aimed to clarify the relationships of mother’s bonding with her child during the period from pregnancy to three months postpartum with the factors including the mother’s attachment style during pregnancy and others. A longitudinal survey was conducted by first asking primiparous women in the 26th week or more of pregnancy to respond the self-administered questionnaires, and then sending the questionnaires to the same women individually at one month and three months postpartum. The number of questionnaires first distributed to the pregnant women was 376, out of which 334 were returned. Finally, 252 valid responses were received from the women at three months postpartum with a valid-response rate of 67.0%. The score of preoccupied attachment style assessed during pregnancy, mother’s breast-feeding condition at one and three months postpartum, and the presence or absence of mother’s health problem at three months postpartum were found to be factors significantly predicting lower mother-to-infant bonding at three months postpartum. The survey suggested that the pregnant woman’s preoccupied attachment style score could offer effective clues to the preventive support for mother-to-infant bonding at three months postpartum.

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Purpose: The purpose of this article is to clarify the process by which midwives cope with any conflicts that may arise while they are providing care to women who have undergone an induced abortion in their second-trimester.
Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 midwives and the data were analyzed using the Saiki version of the Grounded Theory Approach (GTA).
Results: The midwives tend to deal with the conflicts that they experience during caregiving through the following process: it begins with “conflict occurs in care,” followed by “realizing the feelings of women,” “feeling insufficient in providing care,” “understanding the conflicts faced by women,” “recapturing individuality,” “acknowledging the existence of the fetus,” “respecting the women’s decision to have an abortion,” “remembering the experience of the abortion,” “guiding women,” “wishing for them to live positively,” and “hoping women do not have to undergo another abortion.”
Conclusion: The data analysis revealed a phenomenon named “respecting the women’s decision to have an abortion” which helped the midwives deal with the conflicts they experienced while caring for these women who have undergone induced second-trimester abortions.

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Aim: This study aimed to examine whether there were differences in productivity and work engagement depending on employment status or stage of pregnancy.
Methods: We conducted an online survey in 2019 (April-May) as part of the “Survey on the Health and Productivity of Working Women.” In addition to demographic data, productivity (Presenteeism) using the Work Limitation Questionnaire-Short Form and the Tokyo University 1-item Presenteeism, productivity (Absenteeism) using number of days absent in the past 4 weeks, and work engagement using the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale were investigated.
Result: In total, 454working non-pregnant women and 450 working pregnant women in their 1st trimester (90), 2nd trimester (212), and 3rd trimester (148) were analyzed. Regarding presenteeism, scores for [time management], [mental-interpersonal task], and [at-work productivity loss] were higher in the 1st trimester than in the 2nd trimester. For work engagement, [Dedication] scores were higher in the last trimester than in the second trimester. Regular-employed pregnant women showed significantly higher difficulties at work in “output task” and significantly lower “vitality” work engagement. There was no significant difference regarding other variables.
Conclusion: It became clear that productivity and work engagement differed depending on the pregnancy period and employment status. It is necessary for both pregnant women and employers to manage according to the characteristics of the pregnancy period and to respect diversity of women’s work style.

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This study aimed to clarify the effects of the adult attachment styles of dual-income parents on their coparenting. Total of 580 parents (290 fathers and 290 mothers; not paired), whose first child was a two-year-old, participated in the web survey. The participants were asked to complete the Experiences in Close Relationships inventory-the-generalized-other-version (anxious-preoccupied and avoidance of intimacy) and the Coparenting Relationship Scale Version Japanese (CRS-J, seven factors). The average age was 38.1±5.7 and 34.4±4.3 years for fathers and mothers, respectively.
Four classifications created through combinations of the high/low anxious-preoccupied and high/low avoidance of intimacy adult attachment styles were considered, and a stepwise regression analysis was conducted. The CRS-J score of “low anxious-preoccupied and low avoidance of intimacy” was significantly higher for both fathers and mothers than that of other types (p‹.001). In contrast, the CRS-J score of “high anxious-preoccupied and low avoidance of intimacy” was significantly lower for fathers than that of other types, and the CRS-J score of “high anxious-preoccupied and high avoidance of intimacy” was significantly lower for mothers than that of other types (p‹.001). Moreover, in the stepwise regression analysis method, the interaction between the adult attachment styles of “abandoned anxiety” and “avoidance of intimacy” significantly affected CRS-J (β=.213, p=‹.001) for fathers but not for mothers. Thus, the influence of adult attachment style on coparenting was significant for both fathers and mothers. To promote the parenting style of fathers and mothers, full support is required to encourage coparenting based on the adult attachment style of each.

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We conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 women who had experienced childbirth after a diagnosis of IBD, with the aim of uncovering the experiences of women living with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (hereafter referred to as IBD) who had given birth to a child. The results of the qualitative inductive analysis showed that “despair, anticipation and effort leading up to pregnancy”, “anxiety and hope in the process of balancing pregnancy and recuperation”, “expectations, resignation and understanding of expectations, resignation, and understanding of expectations while interacting with others before and after pregnancy”, “adjustments for pregnancy maintenance and medical treatment management”, “concern and readiness for the unborn child”, and “conflict and acceptance of future childcare”. Systematizing and disseminating knowledge about maternity care for IBD women and the multidisciplinary teams involved in the care of IBD women to work together to implement a continuum of care will contribute to the safe birth of children for IBD women.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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