China To Require Hospitals To Provide Epidural Anestesion For Delivery

JAKARTA - Chinese authorities require all tertiary hospitals to provide epidural anesthesia for childbirth by the end of this year, a move they say will help promote a "friendly environment to give birth" to women.

Tertiary hospitals, which have more than 500 beds, must provide epidural anesthetic services by 2025. Meanwhile, secondary hospitals, which have more than 100 beds, must provide the service by 2027, China's National Health Commission (NHC) said in a statement earlier this month.

Authorities are struggling to increase birth rates in the world's second-largest economy after China's population fell for the third year in a row in 2024 with experts warning the decline would worsen in the coming years.

About 30 percent of pregnant women in China receive anesthesia to relieve pain during childbirth, compared to more than 70 percent in several developed countries, China's official daily said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends epidurals for healthy pregnant women who want to eliminate pain and epidurals are widely used in many countries around the world, including France, where about 82 percent of pregnant women choose to do so, and in the United States and Canada where more than 67 percent do so.

The move would "enhancing the level of comfort and safety of medical services" and "LARGER increase people's happiness and promote a friendly environment for childbirth," the NHC said.

More and more provinces across China are also starting to include the cost of breastfeeding as part of a health insurance scheme to encourage more women to have children.

It is known that the high cost of parenting and the uncertainty of work and the slowing economy have made many young Chinese people reluctant to get married and start a family.

In June, health authorities in Sichuan Province proposed extending their marriage leave to 25 days and maternity leave to 150 days, to help create "a fertility-friendly society."