When Cherie Leung was pregnant with her first child in 2004, she had no idea how to prepare for the birth. 'None of my friends were parents back then. I read a lot of baby magazines to ease my worries about pregnancy and parenthood, but most of the articles were written like advertorials. I didn't know whether to trust the information,' she says.
Then Leung came across Baby Kingdom, a parenting portal that provided invaluable information and helped ease her concerns.
'I got all kinds of advice about prenatal care, nutrition and education. Mothers who give birth in the same month are grouped together on the site, and that's how I got to know others who were due to deliver in November 2004. The mother of a three-month-old faces different obstacles to one with a two-month-old. Sharing tips online and meeting one another once in a while, we brought up our kids together.'
Increasing numbers of parents are turning to online portals such as Geobaby, Little Steps and Peegaboo for peer support and the latest information on child-raising. And a crucial ingredient for success seems to be that the parents come up with the most relevant tips themselves.
Baby Kingdom is perhaps the most vibrant of Hong Kong's online parenting communities. Launched from the homes of two IT professionals in 2002, it has grown into a hugely popular portal with 400,000 members and 32 employees. According to a recent report by the Boston Consulting Group on Hong Kong's internet businesses, approximately 80,000 people visit baby-kingdom.com daily and the site receives more than 40,000 posts a day.
Co-founder Winson Chow Wai-chung, a social worker turned technology entrepreneur, set up the portal with business partner Rainer Sip Ka-lung a decade ago because of a dearth of neonatal information on the web. Chow and his wife sorely felt the inadequacy as they ran into difficulties using Chinese herbal remedies for their young son's frequent stomach problems.