{"id":13588,"date":"2012-07-12T23:07:19","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T23:07:19","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-07-12T23:07:19","modified_gmt":"2012-07-12T23:07:19","slug":"Beijing-running-out-of-maternity-hospital-beds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=13588","title":{"rendered":"Beijing running out of maternity hospital beds"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s widely understood that “guanxi” or connections are important when doing business in China.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But for 17 million pregnant mothers, they have found out how “guanxi” is also absolutely crucial in helping them secure a maternity ward bed in the country.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In heavily pregnant Beijing, the dragon-year pre-natal crush is being compounded by the ever increasing numbers of white-collar migrant, expectant mothers.<\/p>\n

Every maternity hospital bed is reportedly booked through August<\/strong>, and the situation has become so desperate that Beijing has decreed that hospitals give priority to mothers who were themselves born in the capital. <\/p>\n

The dragon baby boom is also putting additional pressure on the already overcrowded and understaffed clinics in Beijing <\/strong>which sees an average of about 140 pre-natal mothers undergoing examination each day.<\/p>\n

But there’s more to this year’s increased birthrate than just an auspicious Chinese zodiac sign.<\/p>\n

The growth of the migrant population in the capital is also a factor.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Migrant workers now account for more than one third of the city’s population.<\/p>\n

In fact, 100,000 of the 190,000 babies born in Beijing last year were from migrant parents.<\/p>\n

And these days, more and more migrants are actually white collar professionals who form such a sizeable portion of the population that the number of expectant mothers among them is giving rise to businesses that offer preparatory courses for affluent mothers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beijing Wismom Educational Technology Company’s CEO, Xin Yongjian, said:<\/strong> “In big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, most of the white-collar workers are from other cities. Their parents are not with them. It is a stressful time. The mother has no family by her side during pregnancy. Our clubs are a professional way of helping them cope.”<\/p>\n

From mommy yoga to other health-related courses, mothers pay a minimum of US$300 to become a member at this center.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It said about two-thirds of their members are from outside Beijing but are now living and working in the capital.<\/p>\n

Ahhhh Dragon babies!!!<\/strong>
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s widely understood that “guanxi” or connections are important when doing business in China. But for 17 million pregnant mothers,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"njaiyo","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/255e26fc52858afad234c2c1d44c946e16c565fd0ef5615b0c1caa793897759d?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"5","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"It’s widely understood that “guanxi” or connections are important when doing business in China. But for 17 million pregnant mothers,","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":219,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":2,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"njaiyo","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=6"},"magazine_blocks_comment":5,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/255e26fc52858afad234c2c1d44c946e16c565fd0ef5615b0c1caa793897759d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"News<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}