are Japanese yōkai of pregnant women. They can also be written as . Throughout folk stories and literature the identity and appearance of ubume varies. However, she is most commonly depicted as the spirit of a woman who has died during childbirth. Passersby will see her as a normal-looking woman carrying a baby. She will typically try to give the passerby her child then disappear. When the person goes to look at the child in their arms, they discover it is only a bundle of leaves or large rock. The idea that pregnant women who die and get buried become "ubume" has existed since ancient times; which is why it has been said that when a pregnant woman dies prepartum, one ought to cut the fetus out the abdomen and put it on the mother in a hug as they are buried. In some regions, if the fetus cannot be cut out, a doll would be put beside her.
Variations
In the 16th volume, first half of the Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang of the Tang dynasty, volume 462 of the Taiping Guangji of Northern Song dynasty, the "night-going leisure woman" is a nocturnal strange bird that steals people's babies and about it is written, "perhaps it is the changed form of what was once someone who died in childbirth" (). In Japan, they would often wear a blood-stained koshimaki, embrace children and chase after people who accompany them. They are also mentioned in the Hyakumonogatari Hyōban ("They are women who died upon childbirth, and became this due to attachment. In appearance, they are stained with blood below the waist, and they are said to cry out, "obareu, obareu" ()), the Kii Zōdan Shū ("the ubume does not give childbirth, and if only the fetus had life, such a deep delusion of the mother remains, and thus they change to this and embraces a child at night. It's said when the child cries, the ubume does too"), the Compendium of Materia Medica, and the Wakan Sansai Zue. The ubume's blood-soaked appearance is thought to be because in feudal society, the continuation of the family was considered important, so pregnant women who died were believed to fall into a hell with a pond of blood.
Ubume in Hinoemata, Minamiaizu District and Kaneyama, Ōnuma District, Fukushima Prefecture were called "obo". It is said that when they encounter someone, they make that person hug a baby and then disappear in peace and the one hugging the baby will have their throat bitten by the baby. It is said that when one encounters an obo, throwing a piece of cloth, such as a string with a billhook attached for men, or a gōkōsō (a type of women's handkerchief), tenugui, or a yumaki (a type of waistcloth) for women, it would divert the obo's attention and create an opportunity to escape. It is also said that if one does end up hugging the baby, hugging the baby with its face facing the other way would result in not being bit. Also, the "obo" is, like the "ubu" in "ubume", originally a dialect term referring to newborns. In Yanaizu, Kawanuma District, there is a legend centered on the "obo" called the "obo hugging Kannon".
In the Nishimatsuura District, Saga Prefecture and in Miyamachi Miyaji, Aso, Kumamoto Prefecture, they are called "ugume" and it is said that they appear at night and they would make people embrace a baby a night, but when dawn comes, they would generally be a rock, a stone tower, or a straw beater. (On Goshōra island in Nagasaki Prefecture, also in Kyushu, there is a type of funayūrei called "ugume".)
In the Iki region of Nagasaki Prefecture, they are called "unme" or "uume" and they occur when a young person dies or when a woman dies from difficult childbirth, and they would sway back and forth before disappearing, having the appearance of a creepy blue light.