• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.137-163
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• 2010

This study examines how individual, familial, and social factors are associated with persistent very low fertility in Busan Metropolitan City and contemplates family-friendly environments and social strategies for fertility increase. Fertility decline in Busan Metropolitan City recorded the lowest birth rate nationwide recent years among metropolitan cities and provinces in Korea. Birthrates are low partly because of multiple factors such as high age at childbearing and at marriage, decline in marriage, high divorce rate, the phenomena of marriage avoidance among unmarried women, traditional gender role attitude of men, low domestic work participation of husbands among dual career couples, low marital satisfaction and family life satisfaction, abortion, and more broader attiributes such as family policy, availability of childcare, education expenses, and family-friendlyness of a society. In addition, women of dual career couples in Busan strained from domestic work overload under traditional norms of gender role, and marital satisfaction recorded below average nationwide along with espeacially low marital satisfaction of wives compared to that of husbands. Major aspects of implications and considerations for higher birth rate and family friendly policy in Busan are discussed.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.449-457
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• 2016

This study was aimed at exploring the meaning and essence of the conflict experiences of clinical dental hygienists. In-depth interviews with 13 dental hygienists working in a dental clinic were conducted. Giorgi's method was used for qualitative analysis of the data. Conflict experiences of clinical dental hygienists were categorized into four central meaning as task conflicts, interpersonal conflicts, organizational environment conflicts, and conflict management style. Participants felt more sensitive towards the attitudes of people than treatment itself. Further studies on the multifaceted approach to conflict experiences of dental hygienists should be made. Additional research is necessary to develop effective measures and program to prevent and reduce conflict and stress in the work environment of dental hygienists.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.385-391
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• 2011

Human in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer (IVF-ET) program is a general procedure for infertile couples since first successful delivery on 1978 in UK and Korean first on 1985. Recently in Korea, more than 42,000 cases per year of IVF-ET were performed and showed good pregnancy rates compared worldwide data. The human IVF-ET procedure use many consumables, such as ovum pick-up (OPU) needles, centrifuge tubes, culture dish, ICSI pipette, culture media and ET catheters. Major of these materials are supported by the global companies. Thus, Korean IVF-ET program might be placed unstable situation by global economical risks. These uncertain problems could be overcome by the domestic production of IVF-ET materials and consumables. Two times questionnaires for Korean clinicians and researchers about the domestic production were performed and analyzed. Many of them requested domestic OPU needles, ET catheters, culture media and ICSI pipettes under good quality control and quality assurance system. This trial may be contributed to industrialization and to global competence of Korean IVF-ET program. The results of this survey can be provide a fundamental base for development and production of domestic materials and consumables for human IVF-ET program.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.959-972
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• 2014

This study aims to describe childlessness trends and examine the factors impacting on the childlessness of married couples among Korean provinces between 1990 and 2010. The results are as follows: There have been differences in childlessness rates among provinces and over time as well. Furthermore, social development, transportation, women's status, and economic development have statistically significant positive impacts on ASMCR. It turns out that age-specific marital childlessness rate is rather accurate measurement than general marital childlessness rate in terms of exploring the factors influencing on the childlessness among Korean provinces. Korea's government policy to aid the married couples who are suffering from in-fecundity is strongly recommended to maintain its policy and extend its subjects in order to increase married couples' fertility rate. Furthermore, campaigns to change married couples' recognition and attitudes from unfavorable against childbearing to favorable toward childbearing so that the married couples would be willing to have childbearing in terms of fertility rate increase.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.546-550
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• 2008

In this untreated classic phenylketonuria (PKU) case, mental retardation is severe; however, there have been individuals- like the mother of this case- who have escaped mental retardation and all the other potential sequelae of phenylketonuria, despite having high blood phenylalanine levels, and very poor dietary control. It appears that they have nearly normal brain phenylalanine levels despite high blood phenylalanine (Phe) levels. A number of studies have now demonstrated considerable variability in blood vs. brain phenylalanine levels in phenylketonuria patients. Outcome of phenylketonuria appears to be related to brain phenylalanine levels. We report a case of "undiagnosed" maternal phenylketonuria syndrome. A female infant had low birth weight (2,400 g) with microcephaly. We examined her family and discovered that her mother was an undiagnosed phenylketonuria patient with a borderline intelligence quotient (IQ). The infant's sister, six years old, was diagnosed with phenylketonuria at the age of four years was mentally retarded and had received an operation for cleft lip and palate. the sister had also had a low birth weight (2,300 g). Her sister and mother were compound heterozygotes (mother: R243Q/Y325X; sister: Y325X/P407S). The infant and father were heterozygous carriers (baby: R243Q/ -; father: P407S/ - ).

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.416-428
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to provide basic data for the development of pre-parent education program by grasping parent role recognition, educational needs and readiness of unmarried men and women. The subjects were 196 unmarried male and female students from K-do. Data were collected from November 1st to 20th, 2018, and analyzed using IBM SPSS WIN/21.0 to get frequency, percentage, average, standard deviation, t-test, ANOVA, sheffe-test, paired t-test, and IPA matrix. The average score of recognition of social pre-parent role was $3.41{\pm}0.27$ (out of 5 points), educational needs was $3.48{\pm}0.41$ points (out of 4 points), and educational readiness was $2.65{\pm}0.57$ points (out of 4 points). educational needs being higher than educational readiness. Through IPA matrix analysis, the area to be strengthened was 'family relation or parent role', and 'self understanding' was the area to encourage putting effort into other evaluation attributes. The area where no further effort is needed and needs improvement in the future was 'spouse selection and marriage', and 'pregnancy and childbirth' and 'child rearing' were the areas to intensively improve. Therefore, there is a need for establishing a standardized strategy in the area A, which has high degree of readiness and needs. Also, it is necessary to take strategies and countermeasures to raise the readiness of area C with low degree of readiness and needs, rather than accepting it as an unnecessary area of further effort input.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.118-131
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• 2023

Objectives: This study aimed to provide essential data for the development of a prenatal healthcare intervention program tailored to Vietnamese migrant women. This study assessed the knowledge and the practice of prenatal health management, and the levels of depression among Vietnamese women of childbearing age residing in Korea and Vietnam. Methods: Using a descriptive research design, a structured questionnaire was administered to Vietnamese women of childbearing age, with 113 participants residing in Korea and 196 participants residing in Vietnam. Data was collected from Februay to April 2021. Data was analyzed using t-test and chi-square test. Result: The analysis of knowledge regarding prenatal health management revealed significant differences between married women in both locations, with higher knowledge scores. Regarding prenatal health management practices, no significant differences were found based on marital status or place of residence. Particularly in the item "Will receive regular prenatal check-ups at the hospital." married Vietnamese women in Vietnam had lower scores than unmarried women, and rural women had lower scores than urban women. The lowest score was observed among Korean-residing women in the item "Will seek pregnancy and childbirth information." Regarding depression, married women in Vietnam and women living in rural areas demonstrated significantly higher depression scores. Conclusion: When designing perinatal management interventions for Vietnamese immigrant women, special attention should be given to those originating from rural areas in Vietnam. It is recommended to incorporate the importance of perinatal healthcare and factors related to mental well-being into the intervention program.

• Issues in Feminism
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.123-158
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• 2010

For the last several months, abortion debates have sparkled in Korea. The government has escalated the need of active punishment of illegal abortions to solve low fertility problems, while some obstetricians and gynecologist have proclaimed stoppage of illegal abortions suing colleague doctors who has conducted illegal abortions. Women's rights groups and researchers have also responded to the abortion debate claiming that women's decisions over their pregnancy are important in making of abortion policies. To contribute to Korean abortion debates, his paper aims to analyze European experiences of abortion polices in relation to the consequences on women's health. For the analysis of European abortion experiences, three countries - Ireland, U.K, and Netherland -are chosen. These three countries are selected since their legal and social acceptance of abortion and the level of safe abortion system are different. Each country is reviewed by national abortion policy, legal regulation, medical system and the role of civil society. The analysis shows several implications for abortion debates occurring in Korea. Various systematic policy mechanisms - abortion on women' request, abortions without complicated doctor's referrals, transparent and anonymous counseling and information provision regarding abortion, training and education for medical professionals to guarantee high quality abortion, abortions funded publicly for women to improve their access to abortions, steady monitoring and auditing abortion procedures and outcomes for safe abortion and so on - are required in Korean society. Two track procedures - safe abortion on women's request and prevention of unwanted pregnancy - are needed for reproduction of healthy women and society.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.415-419
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• 2023

The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) began using female manpower from World War II. After making various efforts to secure excellent manpower, the proportion of female manpower has risen to 24%, higher than that of Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia, which have a longer history of female military personnel than New Zealand. This is the result of NZDF efforts to open combat roles to women and allow female personnel to advance to high-ranking military positions such as generals and consular officers. In addition, policy alternatives to address women's realistic concerns such as pregnancy and childbirth, childcare, and vertical organizational culture were presented. In particular, Operation "Respect" was implemented to overcome the problem of not leaving or joining the army due to inappropriate sexual behavior and bullying. The operation respect established the role of the leader, emphasized the support of the victim, and accumulated data of the accident to prevent similar accidents. In addition, through the "Wāhine Toa" program, excellent female manpower could be introduced into the military through customized support considering the military life cycle (attract-recruit-retain-advance) of female personnel. South Korea is also considering expanding the ratio and role of female manpower as one of the ways to overcome the shortage of troops and leap into an advanced science and technology group. Implications were derived from the use of female manpower in the NZDF and the direction in which the Korean military should proceed was considered.

• Neonatal Medicine
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.182-188
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• 2011

Purpose: Recently in Korea, there have been significant improvements in neonatal mortality rate (NMR) and infant mortality rate (IMR). This study aimed to investigate the proportion of the NMR among IMR, with the goal of discerning the influence of improved NMR on the reduction of IMR in the last 5 years in Korea. Methods: All data were from Statistics Korea. Changes in the NMR percentage among IMR and the percentage of the death by the distribution of the birth weight and gestational were investigated. Results: The total birth rate decreased, but the total number of preterm and low birth weight infants increased. These was a large decrease in NMR and IMR. The proportion of NMR among INR exceeded 50%. Early NMR was higher than late NMR. Among the total infant death, the mortality of preterm and low birth weight infants was high. Conclusion: Between 2005 and 2009, the total birth has declined in Korea, but the frequency of low birth weight infants is trending upward. The improvements in NMR and IMR, and the downtrend of the NMR percentage in IMR, are encouraging. It seems that the continued decrease of mortality of preterm and LBWI is required for better improvements NMR and IMR in Korea. This result is expected to be used for the basic data to improve the management of the newborns in Korea.