The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research is the official Journal of the Asia and Oceania Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and of the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The acceptance criteria for all papers are the quality and originality of the research and its significance to our readership. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are peer reviewed by anonymous reviewers and the Editor. The Editorial Board reserves the right to refuse any material for publication and advises that authors should retain copies of submitted manuscripts and correspondence as material cannot be returned. Final acceptance or rejection rests with the Editorial Board.

All articles submitted to the Journal must comply with these instructions. Failure to do so will result in return of the manuscript and possible delay in publication. Where contributions are judged as acceptable for publication on the basis of scientific content, the Editor or the Publisher reserve the right to modify typescripts to eliminate ambiguity and repetition and improve communication between author and reader. If extensive alterations are required, the manuscript will be returned to the author for revision. Manuscripts must be submitted online at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jogr. For assistance, please contact the Editorial Office of The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research at the address below:

Editorial Office of The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research

c/o Wiley
Frontier Koishikawa Bldg 4F,
1-28-1 Koishikawa, Bunkyo-ku,
Tokyo 112-0002
Japan
Email: jog@wiley.com
Tel: +81 3 3830 1264
Fax: +81 3 5689 7278

Authors for whom English is a second language may choose to have their manuscript professionally edited before submission to improve the English. A list of independent suppliers of editing services can be found 18 at http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/english_language.asp. All services are paid for and arranged by the author, and use of one of these services does not guarantee acceptance or preference for publication

Submitting a cover letter is not mandatory, but it is helpful if the author provides any information which may facilitate the editorial process. The Editors encourage the authors to explain in the cover letter why their paper should be published in JOGR. Completion and inclusion of the Manuscript Submission Check form is obligatory with the submission of all categories of article. If the form is not included or complete, the manuscript will not be considered for peer review. The corresponding author must submit this form the "Manuscript Submission Check form" on behalf of all co-authors.

In keeping with the latest guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, each author's contribution to the paper is to be quantified. Authors must state their study does not violate the policies and/or procedures established by journal such as those described in 'Specific Inappropriate Acts in Publication Process' click here and also state that the protocol for the research project has been approved by a suitably constituted Ethics Committee of the institution within which the work was undertaken and that it conforms to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki (as revised in Tokyo 2004), available at http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html.

Nonetheless the research has been approved by Ethic Committee, Associate Editors may reject manuscripts when editors judge there has been a problem ethically. All investigations on human subjects must include a statement that the subject gave informed consent and patient anonymity should be preserved. In general, submission of a case report can be accompanied by the written consent of the subject (or parent/guardian) prior to publication; this is particularly important where photographs are to be used or in cases where the unique nature of the incident reported makes it possible for the patient to be identified. While the Editorial Board recognizes that it might not always be possible or appropriate to seek such consent, the onus will be on the authors to demonstrate that this exception applies in their case. Any experiments involving animals must be demonstrated to be ethically acceptable and where relevant conform to national guidelines for animal usage in research. Authors should declare any financial support or relationships that may pose potential conflict of interest.

When authors submit a manuscript reporting work that has already been reported in large part in a published article or is contained in or closely related to another paper that has been submitted or accepted for publication elsewhere, the letter or submission form should clearly say so and the authors should provide copies of the related material to help the editor decide how to handle the submission. This recommendation does not prevent a journal from considering a complete report that follows publication of a preliminary report, such as a letter to the editors or an abstract or poster displayed at a scientific meeting. It also does not prevent journals from considering a paper that has 19 been presented at a scientific meeting but was not published in full, or that is being considered for publication in proceedings or similar format. Press reports of scheduled meetings are not usually regarded as breaches of this rule, but they may be if additional data tables or figures enrich such reports. Authors should also consider how dissemination of their findings outside of scientific presentations at meetings may diminish the priority journal editors assign to their work.

Authors should declare any financial support or relationship that may pose conflict of interest as a Conflict of Interest Statement in the Disclosure section of your manuscript according to the new guideline and confirm that the results of this manuscript have not been distorted by research funding or conflicts of interest. Please visit this link for further details: Disclosure form click here.

Completion and inclusion of Disclosure Form is obligatory with the submission of all categories of article. If the form is not included or complete, the manuscript will not be considered for peer review.

Accepted papers will be passed to Wiley's production team for publication. The author identified as the formal corresponding author for the paper will receive an email prompting them to login into Wiley's Author Services, where via the Wiley Author Licensing Service (WALS) they will be asked to complete an electronic license agreement on behalf of all authors on the paper.

Authors may choose to publish under the terms of the journal's standard copyright transfer agreement (CTA), or under open access terms made available via Wiley OnlineOpen.

Standard Copyright Transfer Agreement: FAQs about the terms and conditions of the standard CTA in place for the journal, including standard terms regarding archiving of the accepted version of the paper, are available at: Copyright Terms and Conditions FAQs.

OnlineOpen - Wiley's Open Access Option: OnlineOpen is available to authors of articles who wish to make their article freely available to all on Wiley Online Library under a Creative Commons license. With OnlineOpen, the author, the author's funding agency, or the author's institution pays a fee to ensure that the article is made open access. Authors of OnlineOpen articles are permitted to post the final, published PDF of their article on their personal website, and in an institutional repository or other free public server immediately after publication. All OnlineOpen articles are treated in the same way as any other article. They go through the journal's standard Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research Instructions for Author Update December 2014 peer-review process and will be accepted or rejected based on their own merit.

OnlineOpen licenses: Authors choosing OnlineOpen retain copyright in their article and have a choice of publishing under the following Creative Commons License terms: Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY); Creative Commons Attribution Non- Commercial License (CC BY NC); Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial20 NoDerivs License (CC BY NC ND). To preview the terms and conditions of these open access agreements please visit the Copyright Terms and Conditions FAQs. If you select the OnlineOpen option and your research is funded by certain funders [e.g. The Wellcome Trust and members of the Research Councils UK (RCUK) or the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)] you will be given the opportunity to publish your article under a CC-BY license supporting you in complying with your Funder requirements. Funder Open Access and Self-Archiving Compliance: Please click here for more information on Wiley's compliance with specific Funder Open Access and Self Archiving Policies, and click here click here for more detailed information specially about Self- Archiving definitions and policies

Submission should be, double-space, on one side only of A4 paper. The top bottom and side margins should be 30 mm. All the pages should be numbered consecutively in the top right-hand corner, beginning with the title page. Indent new paragraphs. Turn the hyphenation option off, including only those hyphens that are essential to the meaning. Please use Word's 'Save As' option to save our document as an older (.doc) file type. After submission, authors cannot be changed or modified.

Original articles

Original articles should provide full-length reports of current research in either basic or clinical science. The length of an article (including references, tables and appendices etc.) should not exceed 5000 words. The maximum number of authors is ten (10), if you wish to include more than ten (10) authors, please explain the reason in your and describe the individual contribution of each author.

Case reports

Case reports should provide new information that enhances our knowledge of the clinical aspects of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In principle, reports of a very rare case will be accepted; however the following reports will not: (i) a rare case that is presented that does not add significantly new information regarding diagnosis and treatment of the disease; and (ii) when a considerable number of articles reporting similar cases have been already published. Authors are requested to clarify in the Discussion section what readers can learn from the case. Information that can be linked to the patients' identification must be carefully masked. Case reports should not exceed 2000 words (including 150 words abstract, up to 15 references). Figures/tables should be up to 3 in total. The maximum number of authors is six (6), if you wish to include more than six (6) authors, please explain the reason in your cover letter and describe the individual contribution of each author.

Letters to the Editor

Two styles of Letter to the Editor will be considered for publication: i) Letters that reference an article published in The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research. Letters are to be submitted online no more than 3 months after the date of the issue in which the related article appeared; ii) Discourse that sheds light on the understanding of the study of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Asia and Oceania region. This should be structured as a letter to the Editor-in-Chief. Letters should be brief and contain no 21 more than 400 words and 1-4 references. All data presented in the letter must be fully citable and listed as a supporting reference. Letters should be signed by no more than three authors.

Review Articles

Reviews are authoritative analyses of specific topics. Their references should cover the existing literature and include recent studies. Word limit is 5,000 words maximum including abstract.

Style

Manuscripts should follow the style of the Vancouver agreement detailed in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' revised 'Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication', as presented athttp://www.ICMJE.org/. The Journal uses US spelling and authors should therefore follow the latest edition of the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. All measurements must be given in SI units. Abbreviations should be used sparingly and only where they ease the reader's task by reducing repetition of long, technical terms. Initially use the word in full, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Thereafter use the abbreviation. Upon its first use in the title, abstract and text, the common name of a species should be followed by the scientific name (genus, species and authority) in parentheses. However, for well-known species, the scientific name may be omitted from the article title. If no common name exists in English, the scientific name should be used only. Drugs should be referred to by their generic names, rather than brand names.

Equations

Equations should be numbered sequentially with Arabic numerals; these should be ranged right in parentheses. All variables should appear in italics. Use the simplest possible form for all mathematical symbols.

Manuscripts should be presented in the following order: (i) title page, (ii) abstract and key words, (iii) text, (iv) acknowledgments, (v) disclosure, (vi) references, (vii) appendices, (viii) figure legends, (ix) tables (each table complete with title and footnotes) and (x) figures. Footnotes to the text are not allowed and any such material should be incorporated into the text as parenthetical matter.

Title-Page

As articles are reviewed single-blind, material that might identify authorship of the paper should be placed on a cover sheet which will be detached before the paper is sent to referees. The title page should contain (i) the title of the paper, (ii) the full names of the authors and (iii) the addresses of the institutions at which the work was carried out together with (iv) the full postal and email address, plus facsimile and telephone numbers, of the author to whom correspondence about the manuscript, proofs and requests for offprints should be sent. The present address of any author, if different from that where the work was carried out, should be supplied in a footnote. The title should be short, informative and contain the major key words. A short running title (fewer than 40 characters, including spaces) should also be provided.

Abstract and key words

All articles except case reports must have a structured abstract that states in 250 words or fewer the purpose, basic procedures, main findings and principal conclusions of the study. Divide the abstract with the headings Aim, Methods, Results, Conclusions. Case reports should have an unstructured abstract of 150 words or fewer. The title of the article should be described on the top of the abstract. The abstract should not contain abbreviations or references. Five key words (for the purposes of indexing) should be supplied below the abstract, in alphabetical order, and should be taken from those recommended by the US National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) browser list (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html).

Text

Authors should use subheadings to divide the sections of their manuscript: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, Disclosure, References.

Acknowledgments

The source of financial grants and other funding should be acknowledged, including a frank declaration of the authors' industrial links and affiliations. The contribution of colleagues or institutions should also be acknowledged. Thanks to anonymous reviewers are not allowed.

Disclosure

At the time of submission, the Corresponding author must include a disclosure statement in the body of the manuscript. The statement will describe all of the authors' relationships with the companies that may have a financial interest in the information contained in the manuscript. This information should be provided under the heading titled 'Disclosure' which should appear after the 'Acknowledgements' section and before the 'References' section. The absence of any interest to disclose must also be stated.

References

We recommend the use of a tool such as EndNote or Reference Manager for reference management and formatting. EndNote reference styles can be searched for here:http://endnote.com/downloads/styles Reference Manager Reference styles can be searched for here:http://www.refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp The Vancouver system of referencing should be used. In the text, references should be cited using superscript Arabic numerals in the order in which they appear. If cited only in tables or figure legends, number them according to the first identification of the table or figure in the text. In the reference list, the references should be numbered and listed in order of appearance in the text. Cite the names of all authors when there are six or fewer; when seven or more list the first three followed by et al. Names of journals should be abbreviated in the style used in Index Medicus. Reference to unpublished data and personal communications should not appear in the list but should be cited in the text only (e.g. Smith A, 2000, unpublished data).

1. Standard Journal article

Dunn JM. A large mesenteric cyst complicating pregnancy. JAMA 1967; 200: 1129-1131.

2. Standard journal article using DOI; articles published online in advance without volume, issue, or page number. The DOI will remain valid and allow an article to be tracked even after its allocation to an issue. (More information about DOIs: http://www.doi.org/faq/html):

Furuya R, Takahashi R, Furuya S, et al. Is urethritis accompanied by seminal vescu-litis? Int. J. Urol. Published online: 12 May 2009;DOI:10.1111/j.1442-2042.2009.02314.x. Book Rock JA, Thompson JD (eds) Telende's Operative Gynecology, 8th edn. Philadelphia: Lippincott-Raven, 1996.

Chapter in a Book

Lindheimer MD, Katz AL. Fluid and electroytes metabolism in normal and abnormal pregnancy. In: Arieff AL, DeFronzo RA (eds) Fluid, Electrolytes, and Acid Base Disorders, 2nd edn. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1995; 839-875.

Website

Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious diseases. Emerg. Infect. Dis. (Serial online). 1995 Jan-Mar; 1(1):(24 screens). [Cited 5 Jun 1996.] Available from URL: (xxx) Appendices. These should be placed at the end of the paper, numbered in Roman numerals and referred to in the text. If written by a person other than the author of the main text, the writer's name should be included below the title.

Tables

Tables should be self-contained and complement, but not duplicate, information contained in the text. Tables should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals. Each table should be presented with a comprehensive but concise legend. Tables should be double-spaced and vertical lines should not be used to separate columns. Column headings should be brief, with units of measurement in parentheses; all abbreviations should be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: †, ‡, §, ¶, should be used (in that order) and *, **, *** should be reserved for P-values. Statistical measures such as SD or SEM should be identified in the headings. The table and its legend/footnotes should be understandable without reference to the text.

Figures

All illustrations (line drawings and photographs) are classified as figures. Figures should be cited in consecutive order in the text. Line figures should be supplied as sharp, black and white graphs or diagrams, drawn professionally or with a computer graphics package; lettering should be included. Individual images forming a composite figure should be of equal contrast, to facilitate printing, and should be accurately squared.
Images need to be cropped sufficiently to prevent the subject being recognized, or an eye bar used. Magnifications should be indicated using a scale bar on the illustration. Images should be supplied as high resolution (at least 300 d.p.i.) files, saved as .eps or .tif format. Digital images supplied only as low-resolution print-outs and/or files cannot be used.

Figure legends

Legends should be self-explanatory and typed on a separate page. The legend should incorporate definitions of any symbols used and all abbreviations and units of measurement should be explained so that the figure and its legend are understandable without reference to the text. (Provide a letter stating exclusive licence authorization if figures have been reproduced from another source.)

Supporting information is provided by the authors to support the content of an article but they are not integral to that article. They are hosted via a link on Wiley Online Library, but do not appear in the print version of the article. Supporting information must be submitted together with the article for review; they should not be added at a later stage. They can be in the form of tables, figures, appendices and even video footage. Reference to Supporting Information in the main body of the article is allowed. However, it should be noted that excessive reference to a piece of Supporting Information may indicate that it would be better suited as a proper reference or fully included figure/table. The materials will be published as they are supplied and will not be checked or typeset in any way. All supporting information files should come with a legend, listed at the end of the main article. Each figure and table file should not be larger than 5MB, although video files may be larger. Prior to submission, please check the guidelines at:http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/suppmat.asp.

The Editor recommends the following guidelines for evidence-based reporting of randomized controlled trials, systematic reviews and meta-analyses. For reporting randomized controlled trials refer to the guidelines of The CONSORT Statement: http://www.consort-statement.org. For systematic reviews and metaanalyses refer to the guidelines of The PRISMA Statement:http://www.prismastatement. org/index.htm.

The entire article (including tables) should be supplied as a single file; only electronic figures should be supplied as separate files. The following instructions should be adhered to.

• It is essential that the final, revised version of the accepted manuscript and the electronic file are identical.

• Do not use the carriage return (enter) at the end of lines within a paragraph.

• Turn the hyphenation option off.

• Specify any special characters used to represent non-keyboard characters.

• Take care not to use l (ell) for 1 (one), O (capital o) for 0 (zero) or ß (German esszett) for b (Greek beta).

• Use double quotation marks for citations (""), please note that asterisks must not be used (**).

• Use a tab, not spaces, to separate data points in tables.

• If you use a table editor function, ensure that each data point is contained within a unique cell; i.e. do not use carriage returns within cells.

• Digital figures must be supplied as .tif or .eps files at a resolution of at least 300 d.p.i.

If possible, authors should visit the Wiley-Blackwell websites for authors at http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/journal.asp which detail further information on the preparation and submission of articles and figures.

Author Services enables authors to track their article, once it has been accepted, through the production process to publication online and in print. Authors can check the status of their articles online and choose to receive automated emails at key stages of production so they not need to contact the production editor to check on progress. Visit http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/author.asp for more details on online production tracking and for a wealth of resources, including FAQs and tips on article preparation, submission and more.

Notification of the URL from where to download a PDF (Portable Document Format) typeset page proof, associated forms and further instructions will be sent by email to the corresponding author. Alterations to the text and figures (other than the essential correction of errors) are unacceptable at proof stage and authors may be charged for excessive alterations. The proof should be checked, and approval to publish the article should be emailed to the Publisher within 3 days of receipt. Authors should supply an email address to which the notification can be emailed. If absent, authors should arrange for a colleague to access their email, retrieve the PDF page proof and check and return them to the publisher on their behalf.

A minimum of 50 offprints will be provided upon request, at the author's expense. These paper offprints may be ordered online. Please visit http://offprint.cosprinters.com/, fill in the necessary details and ensure that you type information in all of the required fields. If you have queries about offprints please email offprint@cosprinters.com

Online Open is available to authors of primary research articles who wish to make their article available to non-subscribers on publication, or whose funding agency requires grantees to archive the final version of their article. With OnlineOpen the author, the author's funding agency, or the author's institution pays a fee to ensure that the article is made available to non-subscribers upon publication via Wiley Online Library, as well as deposited in the funding agency's preferred archive. For the full list of terms and conditions: http://wileyonlinelibrary.com/onlineopen#OnlineOpen_Terms Any authors wishing to send their paper OnlineOpen will be required to complete the payment form available from our website at: https://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/onlineopen_order.asp Prior to acceptance there is no requirement to inform an Editorial Office that you intend to publish your paper OnlineOpen if you do not wish to. All OnlineOpen articles are treated in the same way as any other article. They go through the journal's standard peer-review process and will be accepted or rejected based on their own merit.

The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research is covered by our Early View service. Early View articles are complete full-text articles published online in advance of their publication in a printed issue. Articles are therefore available as soon as they are ready, rather than having to wait for the next scheduled print issue. Early View articles are complete and final. They have been fully reviewed, revised and edited for publication, and the authors' final corrections have been incorporated. Because they are in final form, no changes can be madeafter online publication. The nature of Early View articles means that they do not yet have volume, issue or page numbers, so Early View articles cannot be cited in the traditional way. They are therefore given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allows the article to be cited and tracked before it is allocated to an issue. After print publication, the DOI remains valid and can continue to be used to cite and access the article. More information about DOIs can be found at http://www.doi.org/faq.html.

This journal is available online at Wiley Online Library. Full-text online articles include reference links to cited articles and external databases, and a full search facility, so that you can find the information you are looking for. Keep up to date with the latest tables of contents emailed directly to your desktop by registering for free at www.wileyonlinelibrary.com..