• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.271-283
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• 2001

The childbearing process is a sociocultural phenomenon of a woman who gives birth to a child as well as a biological phenomenon. The purpose of this ethnographic research study was to explore the experience of childbearing process of mothers with children from pregnancy to the 3 months postpartum in Korea and to understand deeply the perspectives of childbearing women reflected on Korean sociocultural values. A convenient sample of 10 childbearing women were observed from January to October 2000 through field work in Seoul, Korea. Data analysis was accomplished under ongoing process. The results of this study were as follows : The mothers with children experienced self-reflection, family relation, and physical adaptation during pregnancy. In self-reflection, all mothers experienced universality and diversity in their self-discovering process. The universal experiences were maturation, life with family and priority on maternal value between being a mother and a woman. The diverse experiences were taking a dual role of working mother, emotional drift of a resigned mother, and disheartened life of a mother who has two daughters. In family relation, the foundation of the new marital relationship were attained during childbearing process and sexual life were changed for the benefit of a healthy mother and a healthy baby. All mothers established friendly relations with their mothers, but established friendly or conflicting or constraining relations with their mother-in-laws due to husband based family culture. In physical adaptation, the informants endured well the physical discomfort and recognized general appearance change. Also maternal-fetal interaction occurred and mothers realistically felt motherhood and accepted themselves as mother-to-be. The mothers prepared for the best delivery, look for a safe childbirth center, newborn goods, endorsed family coping during hospitalization and responded labor pain to make it more endurable, less painful, fast passed owing to labor recognition of the natural process to be a mother. After childbirth, they felt emancipation, satisfaction, accomplishment, more easiness, actually feeling as mother-to-be, emptiness, and showed response to the sex of newborn. Their Sanhujori practice was different according to the Sanhujori environment including provider, place, time in postpartum and reflected on Sanhubyung. The mothers felt actually mother-to-be and happiness during lactation regardless of feeding pattern. These mothers had a different maternal image about rearing subjecthood through their child-rearing experience. But all mothers felt need for family support and social support. The universal rearing response were actual feeling of mother-to-be, a strenuous experience, a pride on child-rearing, confusion, reflecting marital relationship, and wondering rivalry among children. In conclusion, mother of all with children went through self-discovery, self-reflection and made connections with the family as a mother and as a woman simultaneously during the childbearing process. Therefore it is suggested when harmony and balance between a mother and a woman is accomplished, the woman will lead a healthy and high quality of life. Also, this study sought to confirm the sociocultural factors affecting the childbearing process from the perspectives of the women with children. Therefore health care providers must understand deeply the childbearing women with children based on this finding of and try a integrative approach with new ideology of maternity with biocultural perspectives in a clinical setting.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.345-358
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• 1996

All human health behavior is deeply rooted one's beliefs or value system usually encompassed within the culture in which they live. The Taegyo, based on Oriental folk medicine, is defined as the behavior and self care of pregnant women administered for herself and her fetus(unborn child). Taegyo is believed to be desirable, effective, and healthy behavior by most of Korean pregnant women. It is essential in our contemporary culture, to ascertain what the components of Taegyo are and to integrate them into current, western nursing care, particularly in the area of prenatal care. 910 Korean women were the subjects of this study, who were in a gestation period of pregnancy between 10 weeks to three months postpartum. The subjects were selected by clustered smpling from 10 representative cities in Korea. Data was collected from February 10 to March 30 1995 by a constructed Questionnaire which consisted of 95 items. The questionnaire was developed through three steps such as content analysis, calculation of content validity index, and pretest. Data was analyzed by descriptive statistics and rotated matrix factor analysis with pc-SAS. The mean age of the subjects was 28.9 years : 36.5％ of them were employed and the mean income per month was about 2000 dollars. The component of Taegyo was clustered into five factors such as fetus psychological stability(equity), fetus personality development, maternal-fetal interaction, fetus intellectual development and physical health promotion. The variance of each factor were 23.7％, 8.3％, 4. 7％, 4.1％, and 3.3％ respectively in that order. The Eigen value of each factor was 13.03, 4.57, 2.60, 2.23, and l.83 respectively. It was found that the Taegyo is an unique and holistic self care behavior of Korean pregnant women. Therefore it has been concluded that this study has broadened the understandability of the implications the Taegyo. It is suggested that further studies on the effects of the Taegyo are needed to provide a scientific basis for professional maternity nursing.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.247-268
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• 1996

It has been known for a long time that gonadotropins and steroid hormones play a pivotal role in a series of reproductive biological phenomena including the maturation of ovarian follicles and oocytes, ovulation and implantation, maintenance of pregnancy and fetal growth & development, parturition and mammary development and lactation. Recent investigations, however, have elucidated that in addition to these classic hormones, multiple growth factors also are involved in these phenomena. Most growth factors in reproductive organs mediate the actions of gonadotropins and steroid hormones or synergize with them in an autocrine/paracrine manner. The insulin-like growth factor(IGF) system, which is one of the most actively investigated areas lately in the reproductive organs, has been found to have important roles in a wide gamut of reproductive phenomena. In the present communication, published literature pertaining to the intrauterine IGF system will be reviewed preceded by general information of the IGF system. The IGF family comprises of IGF-I & IGF-II ligands, two types of IGF receptors and six classes of IGF-binding proteins(IGFBPs) that are known to date. IGF-I and IGF-II peptides, which are structurally homologous to proinsulin, possess the insulin-like activity including the stimulatory effect of glucose and amino acid transport. Besides, IGFs as mitogens stimulate cell division, and also play a role in cellular differentiation and functions in a variety of cell lines. IGFs are expressed mainly in the liver and messenchymal cells, and act on almost all types of tissues in an autocrine/paracrine as well as endocrine mode. There are two types of IGF receptors. Type I IGF receptors, which are tyrosine kinase receptors having high-affinity for IGF-I and IGF-II, mediate almost all the IGF actions that are described above. Type II IGF receptors or IGF-II/mannose-6-phosphate receptors have two distinct binding sites; the IGF-II binding site exhibits a high affinity only for IGF-II. The principal role of the type II IGF receptor is to destroy IGF-II by targeting the ligand to the lysosome. IGFs in biological fluids are mostly bound to IGFBP. IGFBPs, in general, are IGF storage/carrier proteins or modulators of IGF actions; however, as for distinct roles for individual IGFBPs, only limited information is available. IGFBPs inhibit IGF actions under most in vitro situations, seemingly because affinities of IGFBPs for IGFs are greater than those of IGF receptors. How IGF is released from IGFBP to reach IGF receptors is not known; however, various IGFBP protease activities that are present in blood and interstitial fluids are believed to play an important role in the process of IGF release from the IGFBP. According to latest reports, there is evidence that under certain in vitro circumstances, IGFBP-1, -3, -5 have their own biological activities independent of the IGF. This may add another dimension of complexity of the already complicated IGF system. Messenger ribonucleic acids and proteins of the IGF family members are expressed in the uterine tissue and conceptus of the primates, rodents and farm animals to play important roles in growth and development of the uterus and fetus. Expression of the uterine IGF system is regulated by gonadal hormones and local regulatory substances with temporal and spatial specificities. Locally expressed IGFs and IGFBPs act on the uterine tissue in an autocrine/paracrine manner, or are secreted into the uterine lumen to participate in conceptus growth and development. Conceptus also expresses the IGF system beginning from the peri-implantation period. When an IGF family member is expressed in the conceptus, however, is determined by the presence or absence of maternally inherited mRNAs, genetic programming of the conceptus itself and an interaction with the maternal tissue. The site of IGF action also follows temporal (physiological status) and spatial specificities. These facts that expression of the IGF system is temporally and spatially regulated support indirectly a hypothesis that IGFs play a role in conceptus growth and development. Uterine and conceptus-derived IGFs stimulate cell division and differentiation, glucose and amino acid transport, general protein synthesis and the biosynthesis of mammotropic hormones including placental lactogen and prolactin, and also play a role in steroidogenesis. The suggested role for IGFs in conceptus growth and development has been proven by the result of IGF-I, IGF-II or IGF receptor gene disruption(targeting) of murine embryos by the homologous recombination technique. Mice carrying a null mutation for IGF-I and/or IGF-II or type I IGF receptor undergo delayed prenatal and postnatal growth and development with 30-60% normal weights at birth. Moreover, mice lacking the type I IGF receptor or IGF-I plus IGF-II die soon after birth. Intrauterine IGFBPs generally are believed to sequester IGF ligands within the uterus or to play a role of negative regulators of IGF actions by inhibiting IGF binding to cognate receptors. However, when it is taken into account that IGFBP-1 is expressed and secreted in primate uteri in amounts assessedly far exceeding those of local IGFs and that IGFBP-1 is one of the major secretory proteins of the primate decidua, the possibility that this IGFBP may have its own biological activity independent of IGF cannot be excluded. Evidently, elucidating the exact role of each IGFBP is an essential step into understanding the whole IGF system. As such, further research in this area is awaited with a lot of anticipation and attention.