Tokyo (Jiji Press)–The Tokyo metropolitan government will provide up to 100,000 yen in subsidies from October to residents of Tokyo who opt for painless deliveries, Governor Yuriko Koike has said.
“The Tokyo metropolitan government will lead efforts to realize a society where people can have and raise children without worry,” Koike told reporters.
It will be the country’s first program to subsidize the cost of painless childbirths at the prefecture level.
The metropolitan government plans to allocate 1.1 billion yen for related expenses in its initial budget for fiscal 2025, and expects to provide subsidies for 9,500 painless delivery cases over the six months through the end of March next year.
Eligible medical institutions must meet certain safety standards.
According to the metropolitan government, the average cost of a painless delivery in Tokyo is 124,000 yen. As long as medical institutions do not increase their fees, the subsidy program will keep out-of-pocket costs significantly lower.
To support parents who start work early in the morning, the metropolitan government will promote efforts to ensure the safety of children who arrive at school well before classes begin. The project cost is 80 million yen. Related expenses will be subsidized for municipalities and the human resources needed to open schools early will be secured outside the school so that the burden on teachers, whose long working hours have become a problem, will not increase.
Also, the metropolitan government will allocate 27.9 billion yen to cover the cost of free nursery services for the first child in a family, which Koike had said would be implemented from September.