Postpartum support for mothers still hard to come by in Japan

Postpartum support for mothers to cope with depression and other mental health symptoms is still hard to come by despite the Japanese government's efforts in recent years to promote it, a survey showed Saturday.Funding and staff shortages are the major obstacles to making such support more widely available, according to the nationwide survey conducted in January and February by the Mizuho Information & Research Institute on behalf of the health ministry.Only 26.2 percent of 1,384 municipalities that responded to the survey operate postpartum support services even though the central governme…READ FULL ARTICLE