page_title: Pyongyang Maternity Hospital
section_title: Patients and visitors
hierarchical_section_title: Pyongyang Maternity Hospital / Patients and visitors
caption_attribution_description: 한국어: 2008년 6월 동안의 북한관광여행 사진 English: Trip to North Korea in June, 2008
context_page_description: The Pyongyang Maternity Hospital is a maternity and teaching hospital in Pyongyang. Nurses and midwives are educated in the hospital for work outside the North Korean capital. There is a neonatal intensive care unit at the hospital. In addition, there are multiple different wards, such as dental and breast cancer wards, to treat mothers' various health problems.
  The hospital employs a unique system of video call booths for family to communicate with a woman who has given birth, as family members are restricted from being in personal contact with the newborn and the mother for five days. It is believed that this helps to prevent infections.
  Traditional Korean medicine is used conspicuously in the treatment of patients, and around 30 percent of all given treatments are based on traditional methods.
  In 2012, the hospital was expanded when a new wing specialized for breast cancer was constructed at the hospital grounds by orders of Kim Jong-un.
context_section_description: As of 2014 the daily amount of new patients is 400, and it has been estimated that 710,000 children have been born at the hospital. In 2006 around 30 babies were born daily. As of 17 June 2015, 453 triplets have been born in the hospital. The first triplets were born in September 1980.
  All mothers from Pyongyang are admitted to the hospital for their first birth. Any North Korean woman may come to give birth to her first baby in the hospital. Mothers typically stay for ten days after giving birth, and those who give birth through a Caesarean section stay for 15 days. Mothers of triplets are hospitalized until the smallest child weights at least 6 kilograms (13 lb). However, Chinese media claims that access to the hospital requires a correct background (Songbun) or a connection with an employee of the hospital. In addition, the inability of common people to conveniently travel from city to city adds another barrier to access to hospitals with high-quality treatments.
  Mothers who have given birth to triplets and quadruplets are given gifts. Silver knives are given for boys, and gold rings are given for girls. Clothes and blankets have been also given as gifts. The children born from a multiple birth of three or more are taken from their parents until they are four years old.
  Leader Kim Jong-un has visited and given field guidance at the hospital multiple times. Premiers Kim Yong-nam and Choe Yong Rim have also visited. For instance, premier Choe Yong Rim and other party officials attended the opening ceremony of the Breast Cancer Research Center's new wing on 8 October 2012. He made another field inspection on 30 December 2012.
caption: Visitor booths for fathers and other family members.
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