This video is brought to you by Square space. In this video I'm going to share with you some shocking things about child birth in Japan.
(Music)
So i'm back with another video, this one a little bit different than what we usually do on this channel
But as a lot of you know, I recently had a baby boy
So I wanted to share this
Experience with you because it totally had me surprised about all the different things that I do here in Japan
Especially me coming from a western country the U.S., but in order for me to do that, I need to bring in some special guests.
Hey
Say hello to everyone
Konnichiwa
What's that? it's mic, oh, he's really into the mic right now
If you guys actually want to see what we're doing on the daily, if you guys want to see you know
What's happening in our regular lives either check out our Instagram account Tokyo Zebra or check out our YouTube channel. Right Wolfie?
Yeah, yeah, give me a hug before you go.
He's a lip syrup today
All right
How is he good? Yeah
Oh also before we start if you guys want to see what we're doing on the daily check out our Instagram accounts
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Check out the discord community right there. So the first thing uh, that was really surprising about Japan
Is painless birth and the fact is like in the U.S. they actually don't even call it painless part. They call it epidurals
Oh, okay. Yeah, but in Japan they call it painless painless birth. We call it: Mutsu Bunben
in Japan. I was surprised that it's not very common here in Japan. I think from like statistics
It's about 5.3 % of all women giving birth in Japan use it
So it's very very low. I can count the girls who had a Mutsu Bun Ben, Yeah.
Most the girls use regular natural work a lot of the the doctors in the community say that childbirth and like
experiencing the pain is kind of like a natural part of becoming a mother so that they
want to like have the woman experience that also a lot of like doctors think that childbirth is not actually a
Like medical operation and they don't think that you should use medicine in order to give birth. It should be something natural
So that's why they don't have this painless birth. People in Japan,
Basically believe that having a pain will make you a mother and it's interesting because like since it's not really practiced here in Japan
There's not a lot of like a lot of the hospitals you go to won't even offer it so I think in Tokyo alone
There's only about 56 hospitals or clinics that offer painless childbirth, right?
So it's like very very difficult and for us living like in the center of Tokyo. There was only about like five places
That we could go to like that. It was like in commuting distance. Yeah, like even like though all those five they don't all offer
24-hour service. Yeah for the Mutsu Bun Ben because there's like a limited number of doctor who does the "Masui"
Anesthesiologist. Yeah
Yes, they have a limited number of them
So they don't offer that at night or on weekend. If you have contractions
Yeah on either of those times. You're pretty much, you know screwed so
I had to choose the one that over 24 hours, which was just two for me. Oh, okay. Yeah since the hospital so those
Mutsu Bun Ben that are limited. Um, the beds are limited, right so you have to book it right when you find out that you're pregnant
So when we were like when was that like five weeks like right when you found out that you were pregnant?
Yeah, I was pregnant and I had this like letter that says I'm pregnant. I had to make a phone call. I'm only five weeks
To book the bed. I felt like it was like you applying to college or something where you're like
Well, I give are we gonna get in? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah
Yeah, and then like I actually get rejected it's really really really competitive. Yeah
Okay, so that's the first thing that was surprising another thing
That's surprising. I think a lot of people were surprised also that are watching our vlog
You know on our Tokyo Zebra channel is that the stay is actually quite long
It's actually like about five to seven days on average here in Japan
Yeah, in my case. It was four days after giving birth one day before because it was the plan delivery
So you said six days five nights six days five nights
Yeah, so I was actually quite surprised with like the total length
But then I was actually also kind of surprised at how much it really cost here in Japan. In the States,
It's actually quite expensive in some other western countries, but from what I hear like in other european countries, it's actually free.
Yeah, I think Canada is also free here in Japan
You actually end up paying about 500 000 to about a little over a million yen
Yep, but you also do get some government assistance, but that really depends on which wards you live in right?
Well, some wards offers like additional support like Shibuyaku and Minatoko as far as I know. Yeah, they offered
Jumanonijuman, so that's like a little bit extra
But like that's a rare case. I think in our case we ended up spending about childbirth itself... It was about
1.1 million yen, and then we had about
520 000 yen, from the government
So roughly paid around 600 000 yen, which is like roughly around 5000 dollars to give childbirth
So for the six days, that's actually pretty good like they took care of you
and some of the things that were kind of interesting is like it's not actually your regular stay which also kind of
Blew me away. Um, you also actually had a welcome pack, right? Oh, yeah
Yeah
When you book the stay or the bed, I got this little piece of paper
Basically tells you like so this is what we offer you like a gift bag and this is what you need to bring
So the things they offered are fast bassett hair dryer
breastfeeding pillow bath towels baby clothes diapers and wipes
basically what you need to take care of the baby and just like live normally. It almost sounds like you're checking into a Hotel
yeah, yeah, basically, yeah. Yeah, you actually don't really need to bring anything. In my case
Yeah, but our hospital was like kind of like a smaller like personal clinic and if you go to a bigger like giant hospitals
Yeah, they offer less stuff. So you actually have to bring a lot of stuff before I continue
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Or slash Paolo from Tokyo and get 10 off your first domain or website and something that's pretty comforting when
going and like staying there is they actually
Give the mothers, classes or they provide or offer these classes to them
So you go in not only just to give birth, but you actually learn like how to take care of your baby
I think that hospital's stay actually is the time to learn like that's what hospital like, you know prepares for the mothers
Yeah, so they have really good classes with other mothers like breastfeeding
how to put the baby in the bath and what you should be worrying about after the hospital's stay
It's like all of the mothers that are having babies at the same time will get together
You know at certain times during the day with the nurses and then they'll like teach you
All the different things that you need to do and if you have any questions, for example, you know
What color should the poop be? How much are you supposed to be breastfeeding?
How do I change diapers like how to cut nails like all the questions like mothers would have?
They have all of them in one group so that they can ask the questions together and you know learn all at the same time
Unfortunately because of the quarantine, um the classes
Yeah, she couldn't it's cancelled. They she couldn't yeah, it got cancelled
Yeah, unfortunately, but they did give you like at least one class, right? It wasn't much of a class, but it was like a lecture
Yeah, just for the um the bath, baby
Yeah, um the nurse just showed me how to bathe the baby, but I also got this little booklet
This was the um material for the um classes that I was supposed to take. It actually has this like how to bath a baby
And what you should prepare for the bath and also..
All about babies health so you have like an instruction manual
For how to raise your baby. Since I couldn't get the class
Uh, the nurse actually came to my room and like she actually went over everything. Yeah. Yeah, so that was actually nice
Yeah, so it's like instead of having, you know, like a group class. You got like a private class
And then there was some stuff that was kind of specific to our clinic that were also pretty surprising
I've heard some stories about like how hard it is right after pregnancy here in Japan and like also in the States
How hard it is but like this specific hospital like really focused on recovery
Right. Um, they really wanted to make sure that the mother was properly taken care of. So for example,
If she got tired like at night or wanted to get some sleep
They would actually take our baby and take care of him. And so that she can get some sleep
Yeah, right after giving birth you are
Exhausted if you have experience, you probably know your butt hurts your like body hurts and everything hurts and you're sleepy
Yeah, so it actually helped a lot. So in any hospitals in japan, they're either
Focused on like mother's body recovery like my hospital or focus on breastfeeding
So if your hospital is focused on the breastfeeding they're going to be focusing on like getting your breast milk work
Working or working before your mother's body recovery. So basically it's hard to get asleep
That's why I chose the one that's focused on mother's body recovery
Yeah, but like unfortunately since you know, they don't really teach you much about breastfeeding
Yeah, my breasts wasn't working until like when I was leaving the hospital
There are merits and the merits of these ones so pretty much in. Japan
You get to choose whether you want to focus on breastfeeding and like getting your breasts to work
Right away and like you want to focus on that or if you want to have some time to recover
which is that's pretty nice you get to actually choose and then another thing that just completely
blew me away and
I wish I was actually there because the food looked amazing
I really wanted you to be there. Yeah, because I wanted to share with you. Yeah
But I mean, first of all look at some of this food that she got this was right after she gave birth
This is "Iwaizen" which means like celebration meal. Uh, you get like a really nice meal after the delivery
It's like, uh, we did it
This is what I got. Yeah, I got a steak and some kind of fish meal fried scallop. Wait. No, is that a blueberry?
It's a blueberry cheesecake
And some kind of soup. Oh and look at that. You even got some wine. Yes
That's like your first wine and you know, what like a year. I wasn't even sure if I was able to drink wine
yeah, I mean I was supposed to be breastfeeding but I guess it's like a little bit like I can drink it in like a
Second but still they gave you still yes. That was yeah. That was great
Like let me know if that happens in your country or in fact
Let us know that if there's anything that you guys do that's different or that just shocked you as well
Like let us know in the comments
This is the lunch. I got the next day the second day. I got the chicken steak. Lots of veggies. Oh
I love chicken steaks. It was really good. And then I got fish, you know, like this place is really focused on meal very nutritious
Meal and it always comes with two main dish
It's really hard to finish everything
Yeah, but it's nice that you get to you know
You always have options all the more reason why I should have been there. I know right?
A lot of Japanese like hospitals. If you don't go to this one. They do also have pretty good food like pretty decent food
It's not like terrible. I hear some horrible stories from other countries
But you know in general Japan has pretty good food
I think this place especially was shocking like I mean look at that food. This is the second dinner
Oh, the scallop was so good. I got the giant scallop this really garlicky lemony sauce
Full of salad pork cutlet I think yeah pork and vegetable soup. That's the dessert
Oh, this steak was so good. That's stuff. Wow. We got some fish roasted beef roast beef steak
And then you got a baked cake, yeah, yeah and this is the breakfast the next day oh those are the thick bacon
Those are large pieces of bacon really
Wow, what else? Okay. So there's a there's a lot more. Oh and this is the
Japanese style dinner that I really liked. Oh you got tempura as well. It's a lot too. It's like a vegetable tempura. I got fish
And Miso soup. Wow, that's super Japanese. Yeah also Japanese stuff breakfast. Oh so you got like porridge
We've got some fish got some cuts of fruit in there. Got some tofu. Got some miso soup
Oh, sorry
It looks like tofu and I got mozuku
And lots of veggies she got a lot of meals. I wish I was there
Yeah, so that's another thing that is super super shocking that you know, your meals were that good?
I don't know. Maybe not shocking to you guys, but pretty shocking
Maybe you guys have that or even better ones
And then she finally left they actually gave her gifts, you know, like yeah, I thought it was like pretty cool that thing
That's a sample bag. I know but still like they gave you stuff on your way home. She got like
diapers she got formula
She had,um what else got wipes they got wipes you got soap and then they even gave you like I think as a present like a real
That was a nice present. They
They gave you like a huge like nice fluffy towel, you know for the baby
He's really good quality, too. You also got like a little box for his uh, umbilical cord
Unfortunately, we lost his umbilical cord. Sorry Wolfie.
Like the last thing that was super surprising
Um was on her way out. I kind of knew this because I like I asked in advance but
In Tokyo when you take the baby home, we don't have a car
That's why we did take a taxi
And we didn't have to use a car seat
If you watched our Vlogs on our Tokyo Zebra channel, then you'll notice that we came home
Maiko had wolfie in her arms and that's how he rode back home and a lot of people commented and said hey
Why isn't there a baby seater why aren't you putting in a baby seat?
It was surprising to me that it wasn't required but in tokyo if you don't drive home
Or you don't drive your own car and you ride a taxi or public transportation?
You don't have to use a baby seat for infants or babies or anything. So
Anywhere we go in Tokyo
We don't have to. it's a bit scary though
If you think of the accident, I think a lot of parents living in Tokyo
They don't plan on driving because you know, a lot of people don't have cars anyway
So it's like a one off thing and just to buy a baby seat
For that one time then it's kind of
Yeah, yeah
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