-
Journal of anesthesia · Jun 2012
Experiences with epidural anesthesia of Japanese women who had childbirth in the United States.
- Tetsuya Yoshioka, SeonAe Yeo, and Michael D Fetters.
- Keiju General Hospital, Family Medicine Center, Ishikawa, Japan. fpyoshioka@live.jp
- J Anesth. 2012 Jun 1;26(3):326-33.
PurposeCultural views are purported to be critical barriers to the use of epidural anesthesia during childbirth in Japan, even though it is not routinely available. We sought to understand the importance of the asserted cultural barriers for Japanese women living in Michigan in the United States where access to epidural anesthesia is routine.MethodsWe used a mixed-methods approach including self-administered, cross-sectional mail surveys and semi-structured qualitative interviews. Participants were Japanese women who received prenatal care at the University of Michigan Japanese Family Health Program.ResultsOf 78 participants in the mail survey, 63% used epidural anesthesia. Positive influences to have epidural anesthesia came from friends (58%), husbands (42%), and knowledge of the epidural anesthesia experiences of others (50%). Seventeen respondents participated in qualitative interviews. Most had learned little about epidural anesthesia while living in Japan, and some respondents had heard unsettling rumors. Many mentioned obtaining their first detailed knowledge about epidural anesthesia from friends in the United States, and expressed fear or concerns about the side effects of anesthesia. Thirteen out of fourteen interviewed participants who used or wanted epidural anesthesia expressed a desire to use it for the next childbirth.ConclusionsWhile Japanese women in this United States setting considered previously reported cultural barriers to epidural anesthesia for birth pain, many chose to have it during their labor. This finding implicates limited access as a barrier at least as important as cultural barriers to epidural anesthesia use in Japan.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*
,_underline_
or**bold**
. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>
and subscript<sub>text</sub>
. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3.
, hyphens-
or asterisks*
. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
- Images can be included with:

- For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)
inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]
to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote.
.