Reasearching Japan

Because of my passion for natural birth, breastfeeding, etc, I have started researching Japan's views on all of this to see how our baby might enter in this world. Are they like China, with a 50% C-section rate? Do they only formula feed or do they encourage breast milk? What is their prenatal care like?


Breastfeeding
http://www.llli.org/NB/NBSepOct03p181.html

According to Le Leche Group, Japan seems to be more similar to the US (due to our influence from WW2) with regards to formula vs breast milk. They reintroduced the breast back in the 70's but there's still many who think the bottle is better.

I also found this table from Japan's Ministry of Health that shows a survey performed of women who exclusively breastfed, formula fed, and did a mixture of both:
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/database/db-hw/babies02/12.html

Surprisingly, in this 2005 study, it seems that more people did a mix, then breastfed, and formula fed exclusively last. But the difference between Breast feeding only and formula feeding only is large. (This makes me feel better.)

Infant Mortality
These numbers, collected again from the Ministry of Health, about infant mortality seem do have a direct correlation with Le Leche Group's historical account when Western Medicine came to Japan.

http://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/database/db-hw/report/3.html

Infant mortality was sky high in the 1950's and have since drastically decreased.

...

And in my research I came across this piece of a vital stat in the Ministry's website:
Table 2. Trends in live births and percent distribution by legitimate child and
illegitimate child, 1992-2006

http://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/database/db-hw/report/1.html

It then goes on to document the nationalities of these parents, which I thought was severely interesting... (hence why it wasn't put in it's own header).

...

My research isn't done, so come on back for more later!