Post-Disaster Stress on Mothers and Children

Unprecedented survey by a study group of Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology found that about 30% of mothers in three prefectures devastated by East Japan Great Earthquake six years ago were still suffering from mental disorder including depression. Deteriorated mental condition of mother often causes developmental disorder of her child. The government needs to exercise fundamental care for families living in the devastated area.

The study group made the research in between October 2015 and March 2016 on 72 couples of mother and child born in FY 2011. They were voluntary mothers for the survey whose children were in nursery schools in coastal area of three prefectures, severely damaged by great tsunami. They included 30 couples from Iwate, 16 from Miyagi and 26 from Fukushima.

In the interview to those mothers, about 30% of them appealed symptom of depression or alcoholic problem. While ordinary ratio of postpartum depression was 8.4% in a survey of Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the ratio of mothers with mental disorder in tsunami area was unusually large. 20% of them were doubted as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

The study group also made tests of vocabulary for pictures on those children, which indicated that one out of four had delay of development in recognition. About 20% showed unusual activities such as unable to calm down. The group found the same tendency in other 250 children, to whom they made the same test by the end of this March.

One of the typical activities of children born in tsunami area has been losing countenance or not coping with group action. Stress caused by changes of ordinary life after the earthquake influenced made mothers mentally unstable and that was supposed to have influenced their children. A care worker witnessed a child who tried to defend his body, when he was said “Calm down” from his mother.

In a survey of City of Minamisoma, located within 20 kilometers from exploded First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, 70% of children in the age of one year and six month showed unusual activity in their development, which is necessary to be kept watching. The care for children who experienced great disaster has been dealing with PTSD after Hanshin Great Earthquake in 1995. Now, the problem is how to care the children who have not directly experienced the disaster. Without fundamental help on those mothers and children, collateral damage of the disaster would not be eliminated forever.