Pregnancy and childbirth in Japan
There are tons of websites and blogs talking about pregnancy and childbirth in Japan. However, we found interesting to post a little bit about our own findings and experiences. We hope you can find the info you are looking for here, and of course, congratulations on your pregnancy!
Register your pregnancy
Once you have confirmed your pregnancy with a doctor, you have to register your pregnancy at the health center of your area. In principle, you should bring a certificate of pregnancy – given to you by the medical doctor – and your alien registration card (ARC). The health center will then give you a Mother-Child Book, called Boshi Techo. From now on, it is highly recommended to carry always with you this booklet, since the doctor will be writing in it your entire medical file through pregnancy. Let is put it like this, this booklet is the ID of your baby, before and somehow even after the delivery. Please, take care of both the baby and the booklet!
There are bilingual editions of this booklet, including English, Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, Tai… I do recommend grabbing the Japanese and “the other language version”, and asking the doctor to fill both.
Along with the booklet, you will receive tons of information about support groups in your area, advises, information and, most important, some coupons to be used with your doctor. You will hence have some discount on some medical check, as for example, the one to detect whether you have HIV (which is compulsory).
Pregnancy is not an illness and general hysteria
Even though pregnancy is not considered an illness in Japan, be ready to be treated as a handicap person from the very first moment you announce you are expecting.
The general hysteria will start with your doctor, advising you not to do any exercise at all. In general, doctors advise Japanese women to stay at home as much as possible, do as little as possible, and gain as little weight as possible.
Riding a bike during the first trimester is for example more or less discouraged everywhere, since a miscarriage may occur. However, it is recommended and recognized as beneficial during the second trimester and half the third. Once you have a 5 kilos bag on your belly, riding a bike and hence suddenly realizing all this extra pressure from your knees is a great thing. However, Japanese medical doctors will probably recommend you not to do it at all.
Japanese doctors may also freak you out indicating you that the maximum weight to be gained should be around 7-8 kilos, and anything that will indicate that you are not gonna make it – gain more – will trigger their “you-have-to-diet” mode. Needless to say, 7 kilos for a regular woman is right on the border. Although I guess if you are not doing any sport nor any activity, that is fine. However, should you gain more, feel OK with it and have your doctor indicating you should diet, simply show him the middle finger and follow your instincts
(Disclaimer -> I am not encouraging here anyone to eat-eat-eat and get weight… simply saying 8 kilos limit is too little for the vast majority of caucasian women…)
The hysteria will then move to your local gym. You will be most likely invited to freeze up your membership until you deliver and sign a paper indicating you are OK with it. So, Japanese gyms kick out pregnant women. The truth is mostly all the chain gyms have rules on their joining contracts indicating they can’t allow you to access the premises at all if you are pregnant, since they can’t be responsible if anything happens. Hence, they play safe: no access, no risk.
No worries, there are many public gyms or sport halls providing yoga or pilates lessons in which pregnant women are accepted. If you are lucky, you may also have a public swimming pool as well. You need however to do your homework and find them out – visit your city hall!
Finally, be ready to face the attitude of Japanese people towards pregnant women. They all become specialist on this idea, and many ideas, suggestions and recommendations will suddenly pop out their mouths. In general, such comments follow the mainstream medical official line -> don’t do anything. That is especially frustrating for the man, since suddenly you start hearing irrational recriminations for things that the woman is doing: why are you letting her do this? Why are you forcing her to do that? Japanese women over 40 are especially annoying. I can’t suggest showing the middle finger here, since it may trigger the wrong (sexual) signal, but I think it pays off to say it is the rule in your home country – that will remind them you are from an undeveloped and mean country, and stop bothering you.
How much does it cost to have a child in Japan?
The straight answer to this question is “a lot”. Of course, it all depends on your preferences and your coping capability. Here some comments on the economical side of a delivery in Japan:
Prenatal care
First of all you need to take into account your prenatal care, which includes many visits to your gynaecologist, in which you will undergo many tests and have many ecos. As a colourful note, in Japan HIV screening is compulsory for all pregnant ladies during their first trimester. Even thought I believe it is nice such test is conducted, I could quite well shake off the feeling it is not totally necessary.
And when I say many ecos, I mean a lot. At every single visit, they will stick the intra-vaginal eco or the regular eco sensor in there and start printing pictures, which is nice since you end up collecting a large amount of nice pics of your baby. However, not sure how nice is for the lady.
Anyway, each visit will be, on average, around 10 to 15 thousand yen. During the first semester you visit the doctor around 4 times, then the second trimester you visit the doctor once per month, and finally every two weeks during the last semester. At the end, you splash on the table around 150 thousand yen on medical prenatal care.
Specific screenings like the amnio… well, that is something apart.
Delivery
I will write something on the difference between a private clinic and a general hospital later on. In any case, and just for the sake of information, I will focus here on their cost: the former costs a lot, the later cost a bit less.
We visit three private clinics and the prices were set at a minimum 480 thousand yen onwards. And onwards mean the cheapest was 480k but didn’t actually look very nice, whereas a nice clinic with private room with all kind of commodities was min 550k. They could go up to 650 thousand yen if you opted for deluxe rooms, especial dietary requiments (i.e. sushi for breakfast instead of a regular meal), dvd- and stallelite-in-the-room, and other kind of stravaganzza options.
The general hospitals are more affordable. However, you need to take into that depending on the check in time, the price may vary. If the check in occurs in the afternoon or during night, you will probably need to add 30000 and 60000 yen to the price, respectively. Cross your fingers and hope for a regular morning delivery.
Summarizing
The cost of the prenatal care is around 150000 yen.
The cost of the delivery (cheapest) is around 450000 yen.
Cash hand out by the Japanese government around 350000 yen.
Total cost for popping up your monkey with gusto on Japanese soil is minimum 250000 yen – with no citizenship for him/her.
Ps. The further away you move from the big cities, the cheaper. We did learn recently Tokyo and Kanagawa do have similar costs… However, if you move to Aichi Prefecture (Toyoda City, home of Toyota…), the price may be around 100 thousand yen less.
New child-benefit payment system
Good news everyone… as of November 2009, the Japanese government is finally (somehow) helping out families expecting a child! There just to be a child benefit amount around 390.000 yen to be received upon the childbirth (on in case of miscarriage). They have increased this to 420.00 yen. Not bad. However, the good news is that the payment can be now done directly to the hospital. Why is this cool? The sequence used to be:
- Have the baby
- Splash half a million to the hospital
- Apply for the child benefit
- Get the money 6 weeks later
Needless to say, this produces a black hole in your bank account – a huge one, since you must have half a million in cash right after the delivery. The new government still offers to do it the old fashion way, plus they now give you the chance to, upon hospitalization, filling a little-and-simple form stating you wish the government to pay the hospital directly. So, the sequence becomes
- Go to hospital
- Sign the paper
- Have the baby
- Pay the difference between 420.000 yen (child benefit) and whatever the hospital charges you (less than 100.000 yen)
- Leave the hospital happy with your bank account (almost) intact (yeah well, I guess the baby will toll you out anyway…)
It seems Hatoyama and the Japanese government is doing some efforts in fixing the birth-related problems. There are some rumors (basically news in the newspapers about future plans) saying they also want to increase monthly child benefit from 10.000 yen a month to up 26.000 yen. Should that happen I will certainly be happy. Yippee ki yay!
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