Comments on: Japan and the 10-month Pregnancy

By: Kaori

Kaori — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:47:32 +0000

About the age thing:

It used to be tradition in Japan to count someone’s age that way (starting with the person being 1 at birth, and 2 after their first year, etc), but now we use the same system as Westerners.

However, they still use the old system in China and Korea.

By: Dawn

Dawn — Mon, 15 May 2006 21:51:10 +0000

Wow! Thanks for such a thorough answer and the visual too.

By: John Nowak

John Nowak — Sun, 14 May 2006 15:46:10 +0000

Interesting … isn’t it also traditional in Japan to bump the age of a person by one year? Basically, instead of being “one” because someone was “born over one year ago”, that same person is “two” because “they are in their second year.”

It all comes down to whether you start counting at one or zero.

By: TORDELBACH

TORDELBACH — Tue, 09 May 2006 08:57:32 +0000

Hmm, intriguing. Expecting our firstborn any minute now, I was rightly shocked all those long months ago to be told by our Doctor that a pregnancy was 40 weeks. As were the prospective grandparents, who you would have thought might have known better. So I can reveal that in Ireland at least a pregnancy appears to be dated from the first day of the last definite period – giving 40 weeks as opposed to the likely conception-date-to-delivery span of 38 weeks.

By: j.w chen

j.w chen — Tue, 09 May 2006 01:28:48 +0000

Some Asian countries in the Far-East did not incorporate the Gregorian calendar until late eighteen hundred (Chinese didn’t start until 1912). From what I know some traditional Chinese family would say ten months. Because of this, my fourth grade health teacher had to spend thirty minutes explaining to us why doctors bump it down to nine.

Sorry, had a sudden urge of saying something that has little or no relevance.

By: Ralphy

Ralphy — Tue, 09 May 2006 00:55:17 +0000

Are you excited for XMen III?

I think theres going to be a preview or something on Fox this Wednesday/Thursday.

Im pretty excited for House tommorrow also.

Later

By: Cindy

Cindy — Tue, 09 May 2006 00:35:57 +0000

Not a comment for this specific post, but for the blog in general:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4984042.stm
the BBC stole your medical reviews idea! ;)

By: Melissa Gay

Melissa Gay — Mon, 08 May 2006 23:55:24 +0000

Oh, wait, I wasn’t reading it correctly. Note to self– never post a comment right before supper!

By: Melissa Gay

Melissa Gay — Mon, 08 May 2006 23:54:08 +0000

Hmmm. Interesting– if I’m reading you correctly, then my (American) OBGYN went by the Japanese pregnancy-dating.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 08 May 2006 19:43:06 +0000

I was taught that Americans traditionally date from the imaginary start date of the first missed period, which gives you 9 months, but in medicine we’d rather not use a date that never happened which gives 40 weeks.