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Women who live high up in tower blocks are more than twice as likely
to miscarry as their neighbours living on lower floors, according to a
survey in Japan. The survey ruled out other risk factors such as smoking,
drinking or low income, and concluded that women living above the fifth
floor had a one in five chance of a miscarriage.

The survey of 461 young married women living in flats in high-rise blocks
shows that 10 per cent suffered miscarriages. When researchers broke down
the figures according to the storeys the women lived on, they found that
20 per cent of women living on the fifth floor or above had suffered miscarriages,
compared to just 8.8 per cent on the second, third and fourth floors, and
6 per cent on the ground and first floors.

‘This was a bit of a mystery at first,’ says Fumio Osaka of Tokai University,
who conducted the survey. ‘The results are not due to excessive smoking
or drinking. I think the real reason is that women who live higher up just
don’t go out so often, because it’s too much trouble. That leads to a lack
of exercise and a build-up of stress.’

Most young urban couples live in flats. But Japanese mothers have easy
access to state-subsidised medical care, so a lack of affordable healthcare
does not appear to be a factor.

‘Japanese flats tend to be small and cluttered,’ says Osaka. ‘That will
lead to high stress levels if expectant mothers are cooped up all day, unable
or unwilling to go out.’

The study quotes one 36-year-old woman who suffered a miscarriage four
years ago, two years after moving to a ninth-floor flat. The following year
she had another miscarriage. ‘Going out is such a bother,’ she told the
researchers. ‘It’s a small flat and I suppose (the miscarriages) might
be due to the stress.’

There are around 70 000 high-rise buildings in Japan, containing around
three million flats. Japan’s Ministry of Construction was alerted to a possible
link between high-rise living and miscarriages two years ago. But a committee
set up to look into the suggestion concluded that there was no connection.
‘We are unable to affirm that high-rises create unfavourable conditions’
for pregnant women, it reported last year.

Osaka disagrees, and is now conducting a much larger survey of 1000
women. The results will be published next spring. ‘Preliminary results show
the same trend as the last survey,’ he says.