Tono, a city of nearly 32,000 in rural northern Japan, lost its last obstetrician five years ago. It has been desperately seeking for a replacement, but up to now there has been no success. In the meantime, the city has adopted a high-tech measure that may portend the future of child delivery in Japan: pregnant women are examined remotely by obstetricians using real-time data transmitted to the doctors’ cellphones. When the doctors judge that a patient is about to go into labor, the woman heads for the nearest city with a maternity ward—usually Kamaishi,which can be reached by a 40-minute drive on a winding, mountainous, one-lane road to the east. 

       Yukie Kikuchi, the city’s sole practicing midwife, said she was pleased and relieved now that obstetricians could remotely examine pregnant women here. Pregnancy examinations are usually done at the patient’s home or at a local clinic. During the examination, a machine hooked to the patient’s stomach records the baby’s heartbeatand sends the information over a cellular network to the cellphone of Dr. Toshihiro Ogasawara at Kamaishi Hospital. 

        Besides Tono, three other cities adopted the system last fall, said Mr. Kikuchi, the city’s health official.