DevelopingOlder Chinese women seek help to realise dream of a second baby after China scraps one-child policy

Wu Yueming, 39, from Heilongjiang was thrilled with the news in October that all couples would be allowed to have two children. She has always wanted another child, preferably a girl, after giving birth to a son nine years ago.

Neither she nor her husband were single children, so did not qualify from a partial policy relaxation of the one-child policy three years ago. Giving birth then to an illegal second child would not only have cost her a hefty fine but also her job at a hospital.

As soon the as two-child policy was announced, Wu went to have fertility tests and was told that her hormone levels were unfavourable. Without hesitating, she booked a plane ticket to seek treatment at the Reproductive Medicine Centre at Peking University Third Hospital, a leading fertility clinic where China’s first test-tube baby was born in 1988.

The centre is one of the leading fertility clinics in China, seeing up to 2,000 patients a day and performing 25,000 ART cycles a year. Demand is high with the national infertility rate at between 12.5 per cent to 15 per cent.

Standing in a crowd of hundreds of anxious patients on a windy winter morning, Wu decided to try in vitro fertilisation (IVF) because she felt she did not have the time for conventional treatment.

Fertile at 50? Egg-making stem cells found in ovaries of adult mammals suggest older women may yet see natural pregnancies

“I missed the chance of having my second baby because I had to abide by the law, but by the time I was finally allowed to have one, it had become a very difficult task. How sad is that?” Wu said.