A health official has called for more attention to be paid to
the risks facing rural women afraid to seek professional maternal
services because they are having more babies than the country's
family planning policy allows.
Vice-Health Minister Jiang Zuojun said at a recent national
conference on women and children: "Some women, who dare not apply
for financial aid with childbirth for fear of being punished for
having more than one child, choose to have their babies delivered
at home or in low-cost, but substandard private clinics."
China has followed a strict family planning policy since the
1970s. It encourages late marriages and late childbearing, and
limits most urban couples to one child and most rural couples to
two.
The policy is credited with preventing 400 million new births in
the country.
However, an underdeveloped social security network in rural
areas and people's deeply rooted traditional preference for male
heirs has prompted some rural families to defy the policy by having
more babies.
Many expectant mothers who choose to defy the rule prefer to
risk death during childbirth rather than face a heavy fine.
Jiang said the government will hand out harsher penalties to
substandard rural clinics and at the same time build more rural
medical facilities.
Local departments of health, women and children, civil affairs
officials and public security forces should all join the effort to
discourage pregnant women from taking such risks and aim to provide
proper health services to rural women living in cities, Jiang
said.
(Xinhua News Agency May 8, 2007)