Many hospitals in China have stopped offering newborn delivery services this year.
Hospitals in various provinces, including eastern Zhejiang and southern Jiangxi, have in the past two months announced that they will close their obstetric departments.
The Fifth People’s Hospital of Ganzhou City in Jiangxi said on its official WeChat account that obstetric services would be suspended from March 11th this year.
Also, Zhejiang’s Jiangshan Hospital of Traditional Medicine announced on its WeChat page that its obstetrics business would stop by February 1st.
The most recent available data from China’s National Health Commission showed the number of maternity hospitals dropped to 793 in 2021 from 807 in 2020.
According to industry experts, there is a warning of an “obstetric winter” due to a record drop in new births.
The closures come as Chinese policymakers grapple with how to boost young couples’ desire to have children as authorities face the growing demographic headache of a rapidly ageing society.
China’s population fell in 2023 due to the low birth rate record and high deaths due to COVID-19.
Local media said the plummeting number of newborns meant that it was not possible for many hospitals to keep operating their obstetrics departments.
Authorities have tried to roll out incentives and measures to boost the birth rate, including expanding maternity leave, financial and tax benefits for having children and housing subsidies.
RN