Kazuo Maeda
The Modern Laboratory · People
The Modern Laboratory
Kazuo Maeda
A pioneer of fetal monitoring who guided a young colleague into IVF and helped him film the first days of life.
A long life in obstetrics. Kazuo Maeda was a Japanese obstetrician, gynaecologist and teacher. He was professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Tottori University School of Medicine in Yonago, and later professor emeritus. He died in 2026 at the age of 101.
Listening to the fetus. His best known work was in fetal monitoring. In 1984 he invented the ultrasonic Doppler fetal actocardiograph, which records the fetal heart rate and fetal movements together on one chart. He kept writing on fetal heart rate analysis and fetal behaviour well into his eighties. In 1989 he was one of the founding members of the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology, and he helped to establish its first world congress and its journal.
A guide into IVF. Maeda's interest in ultrasound helped bring IVF to Tottori. Yasuyuki Mio, who joined his department after graduating in 1974, recalls that Maeda suggested collecting eggs with ultrasound and later sent him to train with the IVF team at the University of Adelaide. In 1987 they reported, with colleagues, ultrasonic egg collection for IVF and a successful pregnancy.
Filming the embryo. In 2008 Maeda was co-author with Mio of a paper in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology describing time-lapse films of human embryos. The films followed embryos from fertilisation through cleavage and hatching, and showed identical twins beginning to form from blastocysts in culture. He also wrote on how Buddhist thought regards the beginning of human life. A colleague remembered that he believed technology must always serve the unborn child.
Also see: Yasuyuki Mio
About the sources
- International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (ISUOG), "Prof. Kazuo Maeda obituary", ISUOG news, 28 May 2026 (with tribute by Ritsuko Pooh).
- Bibliothèque nationale de France, authority record for Maeda, Kazuo (born 1925; Tottori University, Yonago).
- Doctors File (doctorsfile.jp), interview with Yasuyuki Mio, Mio Fertility Clinic, interview date 16 August 2022, page last updated 11 June 2026.
- Mio Y, Maeda K. Time-lapse cinematography of dynamic changes occurring during in vitro development of human embryos. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 2008;199(6):660.e1–5. PubMed 18823872.
- Mio Y, Tanikawa M, Terado H, Toda T, Wada T, Nagata N, Kikugawa A, Maeda K. Ultrasonic oocyte collection for IVF-ET and a case of successful pregnancy [in Japanese]. Nihon Sanka Fujinka Gakkai Zasshi 1987;39:307–308. PubMed 2950189.
- Maeda K. Invention of ultrasonic Doppler fetal actocardiograph and continuous recording of fetal movements. Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research 2016;42:5–10. PubMed 26711552 (affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Emeritus), Tottori University Medical School).
- Maeda K. Automatic computerized diagnosis of fetal sinusoidal heart rate. Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy 2005;20:328–334. PubMed 16113548 (affiliation: Professor Emeritus, Tottori University School of Medicine).
- Maeda K. The status of the embryo in Buddhism: opinions on scientific and religious controversies about the beginning of human life. Journal of Perinatal Medicine 2007;35:384. PubMed 17685854.
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Compiled with AI-assisted research and checked against the original sources. Not yet peer-reviewed. Corrections are warmly welcomed.
