Houston Community News >> China's Baby Boom
3/4/2008 BEIJING - Chinese doctors are
bracing for a hectic day on Aug. 8. It's an auspicious day, the
long-awaited opening of the Beijing Games, and a day when many of their
patients will demand cesarean sections to ensure a lucky birthday for
their babies.
Hospitals in Beijing are expecting a miniature baby boom on that August day as superstitious parents do everything possible to ensure their infants are born on the opening day of the Olympics, according to doctors quoted by the Beijing News, a leading newspaper here.
Birth rates will peak on Aug. 8, and hospitals are adding new beds and shortening their minimum stays to cope with the anticipated surge.
The Olympic baby phenomenon shows the continuing grip that numerology, superstition and other traditions have on Chinese life. Even the precise timing of the opening ceremony, at 8:08 p.m. on the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008, was chosen because eight is considered lucky.
A growing number of Chinese women are choosing to accept the medical risks of a cesarean section in order to have their babies born on an auspicious day or year. On the advice of their feng shui masters, some women are opting for cesareans up to two months earlier than their due date to give birth on a lucky day.
It's among the leading reasons why China now has one of the world's highest rates of C-sections, more than 10 times higher than the rate in the 1970s and far above the 15 percent rate thought reasonable by the World Health Organization.
An astonishing 50 percent of Chinese births are C-sections, dramatically higher than the average of 5 percent recorded from the 1950s to the 1970s, according to a report by the Chinese news agency Xinhua.
Thousands of Beijing women chose to have cesarean sections in 2004 to ensure that their babies would be born in the Year of the Monkey, considered a lucky year in the Chinese lunar calendar. The birth rate in 2004 was far higher than a typical year. One exhausted obstetrician in Beijing said he did a dozen C-sections on a single night in the fall of 2004.
Surgery, of course, is not the only tactic in the struggle for a lucky birthday. Last fall, Xinhua reported that many Chinese couples were trying to conceive a baby in October so that they would have a chance at an Olympic baby.
If they cannot arrange a birth on Aug. 8, many Chinese parents are still determined to have an "Olympic baby" by giving birth some time this year, even if it requires artificial help. "More and more couples are trying artificial insemination to make their Olympic-baby dream come true," the Shanghai Evening News reported.
Health experts are warning that the quality of medical treatment will deteriorate during the baby boom because of equipment shortages and overworked staff. And the new wave of children will face increased competition in schools, universities and the labor market.
On the positive side, the Chinese media are predicting a big increase in sales of baby products, milk powder and baby clothes this year.
Hospitals in Beijing are expecting a miniature baby boom on that August day as superstitious parents do everything possible to ensure their infants are born on the opening day of the Olympics, according to doctors quoted by the Beijing News, a leading newspaper here.
Birth rates will peak on Aug. 8, and hospitals are adding new beds and shortening their minimum stays to cope with the anticipated surge.
The Olympic baby phenomenon shows the continuing grip that numerology, superstition and other traditions have on Chinese life. Even the precise timing of the opening ceremony, at 8:08 p.m. on the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008, was chosen because eight is considered lucky.
A growing number of Chinese women are choosing to accept the medical risks of a cesarean section in order to have their babies born on an auspicious day or year. On the advice of their feng shui masters, some women are opting for cesareans up to two months earlier than their due date to give birth on a lucky day.
It's among the leading reasons why China now has one of the world's highest rates of C-sections, more than 10 times higher than the rate in the 1970s and far above the 15 percent rate thought reasonable by the World Health Organization.
An astonishing 50 percent of Chinese births are C-sections, dramatically higher than the average of 5 percent recorded from the 1950s to the 1970s, according to a report by the Chinese news agency Xinhua.
Thousands of Beijing women chose to have cesarean sections in 2004 to ensure that their babies would be born in the Year of the Monkey, considered a lucky year in the Chinese lunar calendar. The birth rate in 2004 was far higher than a typical year. One exhausted obstetrician in Beijing said he did a dozen C-sections on a single night in the fall of 2004.
Surgery, of course, is not the only tactic in the struggle for a lucky birthday. Last fall, Xinhua reported that many Chinese couples were trying to conceive a baby in October so that they would have a chance at an Olympic baby.
If they cannot arrange a birth on Aug. 8, many Chinese parents are still determined to have an "Olympic baby" by giving birth some time this year, even if it requires artificial help. "More and more couples are trying artificial insemination to make their Olympic-baby dream come true," the Shanghai Evening News reported.
Health experts are warning that the quality of medical treatment will deteriorate during the baby boom because of equipment shortages and overworked staff. And the new wave of children will face increased competition in schools, universities and the labor market.
On the positive side, the Chinese media are predicting a big increase in sales of baby products, milk powder and baby clothes this year.
(Contributed by Toronto Globe and Mail)