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Thursday 8 October 2009
Infertility epidemic stalks the mainland’s one-child generation
They are one of an estimated 40 million infertile couples on the mainland, where the problem is seen as a serious threat to the nation’s population structure and social stability.
Infertility epidemic stalks the mainland’s one-child generation
Mimi Lau in Changsha, Hunan 07 October 2009
In the eyes of her in-laws, Jiao is worse off than the family’s sows. At least they can reproduce.
The petite migrant worker from Guizhou is afraid to go home because the mounting pressure she faces over her inability to conceive has become unbearable.
“All eyes are set upon my belly each time I return,” said Jiao - who would give only her surname. “In my hometown, a woman is deemed useless if she can’t produce a child.”
Jiao, 30, was waiting outside a specialist reproductive hospital in Changsha, capital of Hunan province, while her husband queued to register for a consultation.
Married for seven years, Jiao is still childless, as her husband cannot produce sufficient sperm.
They are one of an estimated 40 million infertile couples on the mainland, where the problem is seen as a serious threat to the nation’s population structure and social stability.
“My in-laws say they can get piglets even by feeding crap to pigs,” she said. “They are upset that there are no offspring from me, no matter what they feed me. They call me derogatory names ... the pressure from outsiders has just become unbearable.”
Jiao comes from Kaili, in the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture of Guizhou, where the pressure on married women to give birth - preferably to a boy to carry on the ancestral line - is still strong. Jiao and her husband have been working in Shenzhen factories, saving every hard-earned penny for their baby quest. So far they have spent 30,000 yuan (HK$34,000), trying everything from folk therapies and traditional Chinese medicine to charlatan back-alley treatments in Shenzhen and Shanghai, but to no avail.
The reproductive challenge faced by couples like Jiao and her husband now poses a challenge for the mainland, which has one of the largest populations of infertile men and women in the world.
Wang Tianping, vice-president of the Population Association of China, a non-governmental organisation set up by academics in 1981, warned that the country’s social stability and future population structure would suffer if infertility was not dealt with properly.
“China has successfully suppressed population growth but it is still important for it to ensure a steady population growth to sustain a healthy economy and maintain social harmony,” said Wang, a retired Chinese Academy of Social Sciences scholar.
Children born since the one-child policy was introduced in 1979 have reached the age of reproduction, and Wang said their reproductive health had become a concern because the age disparity in the population would widen in the future.
“This is also what the central government has been worrying about,” Wang said.
“It’s important for us to deal with infertility. Everyone has the right to conceive, even though they might not have the ability.”
While there has yet to be an official nationwide survey of infertility, experts attending the China International Summit Forum on Infertility, held in Beijing in August, put the mainland’s infertility rate at 12.5 per cent, affecting at least 40 million couples of child-bearing age.
With one in eight married couples unable to have children, the rate of infertility on the mainland is increasing and is quickly catching up to the 15 to 20 per cent infertility rates seen in the developed world.
The 2009 Investigative Report on the Current State of Infertility in China, which was released at the summit, found a significant decline in the average sperm count of men on the mainland, from about 100 million sperm per millilitre of semen 40 years ago to about 20 million to 40 million in recent years. A survey of 18,000 people seeking treatment for infertility in Beijing found that 10 per cent had been trying to conceive for a year since getting married, 15 per cent had been trying for two years and 25 per cent for 10 years, the report said.
Of the infertile female respondents, a large number of had suffered from abortion-related complications such as blocked fallopian tubes.
The report also said that infertility was beginning to strike younger couples, with most of the patients who sought reproductive help from a specialist falling into the 25 to 30 age group.
In all, 66 per cent said their infertility had not been cured after repeated treatments, and 98.9 per cent said they had not received full medical check-ups with their treatments.
Although couples like Jiao and her husband are doing all they can to conceive, many others are using easily available abortion procedures as a birth-control measure, unaware of the longer-term risks they may pose to their reproductive health.
Abortion is heavily marketed on the mainland, with advertisements featuring stylish and beautiful young women broadcast on television and posted on billboards.
Abortion has been promoted as a means of enforcing the one-child policy. But medical experts have raised concern that complications caused by rampant abortions are driving up female reproductive problems.
Although China has many back-alley fertility clinics, the Reproductive and Genetic Hospital of Citic-Xiangya in Changsha is one of the few prestigious and reputable treatment centres, with patients such as Jiao and her husband flocking there from across the country.
Every day, a queue of desperate couples snakes outside the ageing, 15-storey Xiangya Hotel, which houses the hospital on seven floors.
On the day Jiao and her husband arrived to seek an appointment, the first in the queue was a half-awake man sitting on the ground, who said he had been there since 2am. Three women behind him were agents paid to queue up for patients. Fifth in the queue was a 20-year-old couple from Hengyang, Hunan, who had been trying for a baby for two years. They had arrived at 3am.
The hospital’s president, Professor Lu Guangxiu, said it had implemented a waiting list system to cope with demand.
“Each morning, our hospital is like a vegetable market jammed with patients,” she said. “They register today but will have to come back a year later for the actual treatment.”
Lu’s father, Lu Huilin, pioneered test-tube baby technology in China in 1979, a year after the world’s first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in Britain.
“China started off much later than its Western counterparts because of the Cultural Revolution,” said Lu, who gave up her surgical career in Guangdong 30 years ago to pursue her father’s dream of improving the mainland’s assisted reproductive technology. “All books were burnt and repositories of medical knowledge were destroyed during the tumultuous years. We had to start everything from scratch.”
After working in the field for decades, Lu observed that the high number of abortions and increasing levels of obesity were the main reasons for rising infertility rates on the mainland.
“The leading causes of infertility among females are the blockage of fallopian tubes and endometriosis, which are mostly induced by abortions,” she said.
Lu said 40 per cent of her patients admitted having premarital sex as social mores loosened after China’s reform and opening-up. The lack of sex education meant that many people remained ignorant of contraceptive methods and resorted to abortions following accidental pregnancies, she said.
“Many people baulk at the mention of any sex-related topics. Even now, China’s sex education is almost non-existent,” Lu said.
A vociferous proponent of integrating sex education into the formal curriculum of mainland schools, Lu said her call had fallen on deaf ears so far.
“The efforts that our country is putting into sex education are still rather backward. But China really has way too many problems to deal with right now. I don’t blame the country for it,” she said.
Lu attributed the worsening infertility problem to rising affluence. “As people get richer and adopt a Western lifestyle, their sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy eating habits have worsened the problem of obesity,” she said.
“In the past two years, I have seen 60 per cent of my female patients diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome. This is commonly linked to obesity. Many men have also piled on the pounds, and being overweight at a young age is affecting their sperm count and quality.”
When all other treatments fail, couples can resort to in-vitro fertilisation, a procedure in which an egg is fertilised outside the womb.
Citic-Xiangya has a 51 per cent success rate with this treatment, which is on par with the international standard. Each procedure costs between 15,000 yuan and 25,000 yuan - a price that is beyond the reach of many couples.
Despite the hefty cost, Jiao and her husband are determined to realise their dream and have quit their jobs to concentrate on having a child.
“Be it a girl or boy, I just want a baby,” Jiao said. “We are going to go all the way, no matter how much money or time this is going to take.”
“So I’m someone’s mom!” Welcoming our first child, Cecily Philips Donnell, at 12:24 p.m. on Tuesday, July 14. We are absolutely head over heels in love with Cecily, and parenthood is already the most insane and beautiful thing in existence, It's made me excited to have a little spitfire of a daughter of my own. I remembered when i found out i was pregnant 3years ago and was about to walk away from the musical. But at eight weeks, i had a miscarriage. i was so unhappy, until i seek help spiritually from a Dr Iya the herbal practitioner, who helps and guide me to get pregnant again, even at the trying times few weeks in April when i battled symptoms of the coronavirus including "a cough that makes it feel like my head is splitting open from the inside out, but luckily, the baby was okay with the doctors help. i am happy to finally be a mother, couples out there that needs help, trying to conceive a baby, contact my doctor on nativeiyabasira@yahoo.com , you will definitely have a baby to make you a parent.
4 comments:
Infertility epidemic stalks the mainland’s one-child generation
Mimi Lau in Changsha, Hunan
07 October 2009
In the eyes of her in-laws, Jiao is worse off than the family’s sows. At least they can reproduce.
The petite migrant worker from Guizhou is afraid to go home because the mounting pressure she faces over her inability to conceive has become unbearable.
“All eyes are set upon my belly each time I return,” said Jiao - who would give only her surname. “In my hometown, a woman is deemed useless if she can’t produce a child.”
Jiao, 30, was waiting outside a specialist reproductive hospital in Changsha, capital of Hunan province, while her husband queued to register for a consultation.
Married for seven years, Jiao is still childless, as her husband cannot produce sufficient sperm.
They are one of an estimated 40 million infertile couples on the mainland, where the problem is seen as a serious threat to the nation’s population structure and social stability.
“My in-laws say they can get piglets even by feeding crap to pigs,” she said. “They are upset that there are no offspring from me, no matter what they feed me. They call me derogatory names ... the pressure from outsiders has just become unbearable.”
Jiao comes from Kaili, in the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture of Guizhou, where the pressure on married women to give birth - preferably to a boy to carry on the ancestral line - is still strong. Jiao and her husband have been working in Shenzhen factories, saving every hard-earned penny for their baby quest. So far they have spent 30,000 yuan (HK$34,000), trying everything from folk therapies and traditional Chinese medicine to charlatan back-alley treatments in Shenzhen and Shanghai, but to no avail.
The reproductive challenge faced by couples like Jiao and her husband now poses a challenge for the mainland, which has one of the largest populations of infertile men and women in the world.
Wang Tianping, vice-president of the Population Association of China, a non-governmental organisation set up by academics in 1981, warned that the country’s social stability and future population structure would suffer if infertility was not dealt with properly.
“China has successfully suppressed population growth but it is still important for it to ensure a steady population growth to sustain a healthy economy and maintain social harmony,” said Wang, a retired Chinese Academy of Social Sciences scholar.
Children born since the one-child policy was introduced in 1979 have reached the age of reproduction, and Wang said their reproductive health had become a concern because the age disparity in the population would widen in the future.
“This is also what the central government has been worrying about,” Wang said.
“It’s important for us to deal with infertility. Everyone has the right to conceive, even though they might not have the ability.”
While there has yet to be an official nationwide survey of infertility, experts attending the China International Summit Forum on Infertility, held in Beijing in August, put the mainland’s infertility rate at 12.5 per cent, affecting at least 40 million couples of child-bearing age.
With one in eight married couples unable to have children, the rate of infertility on the mainland is increasing and is quickly catching up to the 15 to 20 per cent infertility rates seen in the developed world.
The 2009 Investigative Report on the Current State of Infertility in China, which was released at the summit, found a significant decline in the average sperm count of men on the mainland, from about 100 million sperm per millilitre of semen 40 years ago to about 20 million to 40 million in recent years. A survey of 18,000 people seeking treatment for infertility in Beijing found that 10 per cent had been trying to conceive for a year since getting married, 15 per cent had been trying for two years and 25 per cent for 10 years, the report said.
Of the infertile female respondents, a large number of had suffered from abortion-related complications such as blocked fallopian tubes.
The report also said that infertility was beginning to strike younger couples, with most of the patients who sought reproductive help from a specialist falling into the 25 to 30 age group.
In all, 66 per cent said their infertility had not been cured after repeated treatments, and 98.9 per cent said they had not received full medical check-ups with their treatments.
Although couples like Jiao and her husband are doing all they can to conceive, many others are using easily available abortion procedures as a birth-control measure, unaware of the longer-term risks they may pose to their reproductive health.
Abortion is heavily marketed on the mainland, with advertisements featuring stylish and beautiful young women broadcast on television and posted on billboards.
Abortion has been promoted as a means of enforcing the one-child policy. But medical experts have raised concern that complications caused by rampant abortions are driving up female reproductive problems.
Although China has many back-alley fertility clinics, the Reproductive and Genetic Hospital of Citic-Xiangya in Changsha is one of the few prestigious and reputable treatment centres, with patients such as Jiao and her husband flocking there from across the country.
Every day, a queue of desperate couples snakes outside the ageing, 15-storey Xiangya Hotel, which houses the hospital on seven floors.
On the day Jiao and her husband arrived to seek an appointment, the first in the queue was a half-awake man sitting on the ground, who said he had been there since 2am. Three women behind him were agents paid to queue up for patients. Fifth in the queue was a 20-year-old couple from Hengyang, Hunan, who had been trying for a baby for two years. They had arrived at 3am.
The hospital’s president, Professor Lu Guangxiu, said it had implemented a waiting list system to cope with demand.
“Each morning, our hospital is like a vegetable market jammed with patients,” she said. “They register today but will have to come back a year later for the actual treatment.”
Lu’s father, Lu Huilin, pioneered test-tube baby technology in China in 1979, a year after the world’s first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in Britain.
“China started off much later than its Western counterparts because of the Cultural Revolution,” said Lu, who gave up her surgical career in Guangdong 30 years ago to pursue her father’s dream of improving the mainland’s assisted reproductive technology. “All books were burnt and repositories of medical knowledge were destroyed during the tumultuous years. We had to start everything from scratch.”
After working in the field for decades, Lu observed that the high number of abortions and increasing levels of obesity were the main reasons for rising infertility rates on the mainland.
“The leading causes of infertility among females are the blockage of fallopian tubes and endometriosis, which are mostly induced by abortions,” she said.
Lu said 40 per cent of her patients admitted having premarital sex as social mores loosened after China’s reform and opening-up. The lack of sex education meant that many people remained ignorant of contraceptive methods and resorted to abortions following accidental pregnancies, she said.
“Many people baulk at the mention of any sex-related topics. Even now, China’s sex education is almost non-existent,” Lu said.
A vociferous proponent of integrating sex education into the formal curriculum of mainland schools, Lu said her call had fallen on deaf ears so far.
“The efforts that our country is putting into sex education are still rather backward. But China really has way too many problems to deal with right now. I don’t blame the country for it,” she said.
Lu attributed the worsening infertility problem to rising affluence. “As people get richer and adopt a Western lifestyle, their sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy eating habits have worsened the problem of obesity,” she said.
“In the past two years, I have seen 60 per cent of my female patients diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome. This is commonly linked to obesity. Many men have also piled on the pounds, and being overweight at a young age is affecting their sperm count and quality.”
When all other treatments fail, couples can resort to in-vitro fertilisation, a procedure in which an egg is fertilised outside the womb.
Citic-Xiangya has a 51 per cent success rate with this treatment, which is on par with the international standard. Each procedure costs between 15,000 yuan and 25,000 yuan - a price that is beyond the reach of many couples.
Despite the hefty cost, Jiao and her husband are determined to realise their dream and have quit their jobs to concentrate on having a child.
“Be it a girl or boy, I just want a baby,” Jiao said. “We are going to go all the way, no matter how much money or time this is going to take.”
“So I’m someone’s mom!” Welcoming our first child, Cecily Philips Donnell, at 12:24 p.m. on Tuesday, July 14. We are absolutely head over heels in love with Cecily, and parenthood is already the most insane and beautiful thing in existence, It's made me excited to have a little spitfire of a daughter of my own. I remembered when i found out i was pregnant 3years ago and was about to walk away from the musical. But at eight weeks, i had a miscarriage. i was so unhappy, until i seek help spiritually from a Dr Iya the herbal practitioner, who helps and guide me to get pregnant again, even at the trying times few weeks in April when i battled symptoms of the coronavirus including "a cough that makes it feel like my head is splitting open from the inside out, but luckily, the baby was okay with the doctors help. i am happy to finally be a mother, couples out there that needs help, trying to conceive a baby, contact my doctor on nativeiyabasira@yahoo.com , you will definitely have a baby to make you a parent.
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