China’s decision to allow all married couples to have two children is driving a surge in demand for fertility treatment among older women, putting heavy pressure on clinics and breaking down past sensitivities, and even shame, about the issue.
The rise in in vitro fertilization (IVF) points to the lost dreams of many parents who long wanted a second child, but were prevented by a strict population control policy in place for more than 30 years. That, in turn, is shifting prevailing attitudes in China regarding fertility treatments — formerly a matter of such sensitivity that couples were reluctant to tell even their parents or other family members that they were having trouble conceiving.
“More and more women are coming to ask to have their second child,” said Liu Jiaen, who runs a private hospital in Beijing treating infertility through IVF.
Photo: AP
Liu estimated that the numbers of women coming to him for IVF had risen by 20 percent since the relaxation of the policy, which came into effect at the start of the year. Before, the average age of his patients was about 35. Now most of them are older than 40 and some of the women are fast approaching 50, he said.
“They have a very low chance to get pregnant so they are in a hurry. They really want to have a child as soon as possible,” he said.
Chen Yun is 39 and was in the hospital waiting to have the procedure for the first time. She and her husband have a seven-year-old son and their families are encouraging them to have a second child.
“We are coming to the end of our childbearing years. It may be difficult for me to get pregnant naturally because my husband’s sperm may have a problem, so we want to resolve this problem through IVF,” she said.
Chen said she hoped having a brother or sister would make their son happier, more responsible and less self-absorbed.
“We had siblings when we were children. I had a younger sister and we felt very happy when playing together,” she said. “Now that every couple has one child, two generations — parents and grandparents — take care of the child. They give the only child too much attention.”
If her son has a younger brother or sister to look out for, he might not “think too much about himself like a little emperor,” Chen said.
Over the past two decades, IVF technology has developed rapidly in China, where about 10 percent of couples are estimated to need the procedure to conceive.
In 2014, 700,000 women had IVF treatments, according to the health commission’s Women’s and Children’s Department, which said in a statement that demand for all types of fertility treatment had risen following the policy relaxation, including the use of traditional Chinese medicine.
“Currently, fertility centers at renowned medical organizations in Beijing and Shanghai and others are under increased pressure for treatments,” the department said.
Previously, China limited most urban couples to one child and rural couples to two if their first was a girl. There were exceptions for ethnic minorities, and city dwellers could break the policy if they were willing to pay a fee calculated at several times a household’s annual income.
While authorities credit the policy introduced in 1979 with preventing 400 million extra births, many demographers say the fertility rate would have fallen anyway as China’s economy developed and education levels rose.
Intended to curb a surging population, the policy has been blamed for skewing China’s demographics by reducing the size of the future workforce at a time when children and society face increasing demands from the growing ranks of the elderly. It also inflated the ratio of boys to girls as female fetuses were selectively aborted, while compelling many women to have forced abortions or give up their second children for adoption, leaving many families devastated.
China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission said in November last year that 90 million women would become eligible to have a second child following the policy change.
Authorities expect that will add 30 million people to the labor force by 2050.
Those projections could be overly optimistic since many younger Chinese see small families as ideal and would be reluctant to take on the cost of raising a second child. When the policy was changed in 2013 to allow two children for families in which at least one parent was an only child, it spurred fewer births than authorities expected.
Also under pressure are China’s sperm banks, which already suffer shortages owing to a reluctance to donate among young Chinese men unwilling to father children they will not know or fearing their offspring might turn up at their door one day, despite donor confidentiality.
Calls have also gone out for a loosening of China’s adoption law, which states that only couples with no children can adopt, while also allowing couples with one child to adopt a disabled child or an orphan.
The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs did not respond to a question on whether the law would be changed, and it could not say whether the number of couples seeking adoption had risen since the policy change. It said there were 109,000 children available for adoption in the custody of governmental institutions, 90 percent of whom were disabled and 60 percent severely disabled.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in