Vinnie Merryman / April 10 10:10 pm / Labor Problems

Working Conditions Could Trigger Miscarriage

About half of the working women who have suffered spontaneous abortions picked mental stress as a main cause, calling for an urgent need to change working patterns and improve working conditions. Many attribute this from the women standing for very long periods of time. Nearly 50 percent of the women interviewed about their miscarriage said it was from “mental stress”. When speaking of these abortions, they are referring to a natural termination of pregnancy.

The women who stood the longest had the most abortions, followed by women who did work involving vibration, lifting heavy objects, and squatting. For much of this article it consists of statistics involving the times and activities these women perform to make them most vulnerable to an abortion in the workplace. 125

According to Lee Eun-hwa, who’s in charge of promoting health for women in the child-bearing age at the Planned Population Federation of Korea, “In addressing low birth rates, making a safe environment for pregnant women is no less important than encouraging women to have babies. To reduce miscarriage rates, we should make a more favorable working environment for pregnant women. Those who work standing should be allowed to sit on chairs or given other types of work.”

This is a very interesting article and I don’t think businesses in some of these countries take the right precautions for women when they are in the most crucial stages of being pregnant. The companies continue to work these women as they did before, with long hours of performing hard, strenuous labor. Hopefully some action will take place to put these women in a better environment to work while carrying a baby.

http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=020000&biid=2008041162408