The choice between public and private life

When an obstetrician pronounced Flora Chik's newborn twins healthy and thriving, she burst into tears. Her husband, terrified only seconds earlier as he watched her stomach being sliced open, was equally emotional. For the first time in nine months, the couple felt relieved.

Now, four days after she gave birth to Clement, 5lb 14oz, and Constance, 5lb 13oz, the pretty, high-spirited 31-year-old mother is sitting on the edge of her hospital bed, recalling the experience.

She pauses to consider a seemingly straightforward question: 'What was it like?'. Then tears roll down her cheeks.

'It was like this,' says Mrs Chik, an office worker, holding her daughter in one arm and wiping away tears with another. 'I was all tears.' Mrs Chik had heard many stories about how things could go wrong in childbirth and especially with twins, triplets or quadruplets. She worried constantly because her babies were 'clinically small' in utero. 'Now I feel an enormous sense of relief.' Pregnancy is beset with uncertainty. Few women can truly say they feel sure they will eventually cradle a healthy baby in their arms.

'Will it be a cause of joy or a dreadful curse?' It is a question that besieges many expecting mothers until they see their newborns being towelled off, kicking and screaming, in the delivery room.

Is there anything that can be done to make childbirth as close to pleasure as it is possible to get? In Hong Kong, most parents believe a spacious birthing room with polite doctors and nurses offering assurances with a smile is only available in private hospitals.

This means you must bear the fees of as much as $60,000 for a five-day stay and doctor's charges - compared with the $60-a-day charge in Hospital Authority-run public hospitals.