Miyuki Ishikawa was a Japanese midwife and administrator implicated in the deaths of over 100 newborns during the postwar 1940s. Her case drew national attention and fed broader debates about infant welfare and reproductive policy in Japan.

Key Facts

• At least 103 newborn infants were recorded as having died under her care during the 1940s, according to postwar investigations.
• No widely used nickname appears in contemporary reports associated with her case.
• She was arrested by Japanese authorities in the late 1940s after an inquiry into multiple infant deaths.
• She was prosecuted and convicted in a postwar trial and received a prison sentence.
• She lived for years after her conviction and faded from public view in later life.
• Investigators determined that many deaths followed deliberate neglect or the withdrawal of care for infants from impoverished families.
• The incidents occurred during the unsettled post-World War II period, when poverty and social disruption were widespread in Japan.
• She worked in maternal and infant welfare services, managing surrendered newborns and placements.
• Contemporary accounts and testimony asserted that fees were charged for arranging care or removal of infants from parents who could not afford to raise them.

Crimes and Victims

Investigations after the war attributed the deaths of more than a hundred newborns to practices within facilities she managed or influenced. Many victims were infants of families who had been displaced or impoverished by the conflict and who sought help from welfare services.

Prosecutors and witnesses described patterns in which infants were withheld from care, abandoned, or registered in ways that obscured the circumstances of their deaths. Official records and survivor testimonies formed the basis for counting the fatalities and establishing links to the facilities under her oversight.

Capture and Trial

Authorities moved against her in the late 1940s after mounting evidence and public concern led to an official inquiry. The arrest and subsequent prosecution were part of a broader postwar effort to address abuses in child welfare systems.

The trial attracted attention because of the scale of the deaths and the involvement of public welfare institutions; she and associated staff faced criminal charges for their roles. The court found her culpable and imposed a custodial sentence, while debates continued over responsibility among staff, administrators, and the state.

Psychology and Motives

Analyses of the case point less to a single motive and more to a mix of individual decisions and structural pressures: financial gain, attempts to manage overwhelming caseloads, and social stigmas attached to unmarried or impoverished mothers. Researchers and commentators have treated motives as complex and contested rather than straightforwardly criminally-minded in every instance.

Some contemporaneous testimony cited fees charged for arranging care or for accepting infants, suggesting that monetary considerations were a factor for those involved. Historians also emphasize the role of postwar scarcity and institutional weakness in creating conditions where neglect could occur on a large scale.

Background / Early Life

By training and profession she was an experienced midwife who took on administrative responsibilities within maternal and infant welfare services. Her professional standing gave her authority over placements and the management of surrendered newborns in the facilities she supervised.

Her actions unfolded against a background of severe social dislocation following World War II, when many families lacked resources and public welfare systems were strained. That context is central to understanding how and why so many infants became dependent on institutional arrangements after birth.

Legacy and Media Coverage

The case provoked intense public discussion in Japan about infant welfare, the responsibilities of medical and welfare professionals, and the adequacy of state support for mothers and children. It also contributed to debates over reproductive policy, including conversations about abortion law reform and the regulation of maternal services.

Media coverage at the time was extensive and often critical, and the case has remained a reference point in studies of postwar social policy and child protection. Subsequent historical accounts have examined both the individual actions involved and the systemic failures that allowed large-scale infant mortality to occur.