Shanghai will establish four new emergency centers for pregnant women with health problems this year to make room for an expected baby boom, Chen Zhirong, a member of the Shanghai People's Congress, told the organization's annual plenary meeting this week.

Chen, who is also director of the Shanghai Public Health Bureau, said the emergency centers will mainly target pregnant women with heart disease and high blood pressure, which can cause problems during childbirth.

"Now most families have only one child, and they all want to have better service," Chen told the meeting. "So we are planning to establish the emergency centers to ensure safety during childbearing."

Shanghai is currently home to 56,200 beds in four obstetrics and gynecology hospitals, and nine hospitals for women and children. Those facilities are enough to meet normal demand, Chen said.

But some medical centers, well-known obstetrics and gynecology hospitals in particular, face a lack of beds this year due to an expected peak in births. The Year of the Pig on the lunar calendar is always popular for having kids, and this is a Golden Pig year, which happens only once every 60 years and is considered an especially good time to have children.

More than 137,000 births are expected in Shanghai this year, according to the city's Population and Family Planning Commission.

"We have already had about 8,000 pregnant women register at our hospital, but of course it is impossible for all of them to give birth to a child here," said Yu Leping, director of the neonatal section at the Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital affiliated with Fudan University.

"It is hard to get a bed even if you book it 10 days ahead," said Yu.

Zhou Jianping, a member of the Shanghai Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the city's top advisory body, said couples should give careful thought to having a child during the baby boom.

"The idea of 'Golden Pig babies' is superstition," she said. "The baby boom will affect children entering school and hunting for a job later. Parents should fully consider all these problems."

(Shanghai Daily January 31, 2007)