木津川市

Persons enrolled in the National Health Insurance system should notify the National Health Insurance and Healthcare Division at Kizugawa City Hall at their earliest convenience if they discover they are pregnant. You must submit a Notification of Pregnancy (ninshin todokede 妊娠届出). Once you submit this notification you will receive a Maternity Record Book (boshi techou 母子(ぼし)手帳(てちょう)) and a Pregnancy Health Check-up Booklet (ninshin kenkou shinsa jyushin ken 妊娠健康(にんしんけんこう)診査受(しんさじゅ)診券(しんけん)). These are to be used when you visit the doctor throughout your pregnancy. If you move from Kizugawa City permanently during your pregnancy, please return the unused sections of these to the Public Health Promotion Division at the Kizugawa City hall.

These tickets can be used for standard medical checkups at hospitals in Kyoto, Osaka and Nara prefectures and also in Iga city, Mie prefecture with which Kizugawa city has made arrangements. If you choose to visit a hospital which does not have an arrangement with Kizugawa City, you will have to pay the full cost of treatment at that time but you are can be partially reimbursed later.

The full range of treatment is detailed below:

National Health Insurance does not provide coverage for costs associated with pregnancy in the usual way. In order to help cover the costs of childbirth and post-natal care, National Insurance recipients are provided with a lump sum payment distributed in installments. The amount is generally 420,000 yen for giving birth in a hospital registered in the childbirth-expenses compensation system (sanka iryou hoshou seido　産科(さんか)医療(いりょう)補償(ほしょう)制度(せいど)), and 390,000 yen for other hospitals. This is usually paid directly to the hospital.

If your total cost of treatment exceeds this amount please pay the difference when you leave the hospital. Likewise if your total bill is less than this amount you can apply for the remaining amount to be payed to you at the Citizens Affairs and Pensions Division at Kizugawa City Hall.

Notification of Birth

You must notify the local government office of the birth of your child in Japan within 14 days of their birth. Registration can be done by either the mother or father, a legally appointed representative, housemate or the supervising doctor or nurse. Please submit the notification at the local government office of either one of the parents’ permanent addresses, the current place of residence or the child’s place of birth.

The following documents are required for the Notification of Birth:

• Notification of Birth form
• Birth Certificate (The supervising physician should attach this to the Notification of Birth form for you)
• Personal seal (Inkan 印鑑(いんかん))
• Maternity Record Book (boshi techou 母子(ぼし)手帳(てちょう))
• National Health Insurance Certificate (if you have one)

It is possible for the child to obtain Japanese citizenship at birth when one of the parents is a foreign national. In such cases where the mother is a Japanese national or the father is a Japanese national married to mother, the child will obtain Japanese citizenship at birth. When the father is a Japanese national who is not married to the mother, a statement of Recognition of an Unborn Child (taijininchi 胎児(たいじ)認知(にんち)) must be delivered to the Ministry of Justice for the child to obtain Japanese citizenship at birth. If this is not delivered prior to the birth, the child can claim Japanese citizenship by right of birth, provided the father recognizes the child as their own prior to the child’s 20th birthday.

Please consult with your home country's embassy or consulate about birth registration and citizenship registration procedure. Also note that Japanese citizenship is acquired through inheritance through ones parents rather than place of birth, thus, barring exceptional circumstances (restricted to cases when a child born in Japan is a stateless orphan), it is not possible a child to be born with Japanese citizenship unless at least one of the parents is a Japanese citizen.

Citizenship and Nationality

Japanese law does not recognize dual citizenship. Any Japanese citizens who are also citizens of another country must choose one nationality and make all efforts to renounce their other nationality by their 22nd birthday. Naturalized Japanese citizens must renounce their previous nationality within two years of being recognized as a Japanese citizen.