China: Drug bid to beat child ban

Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Posted: 0039 GMT (0839 HKT)

The number of multiple births in China annually may have doubled due to easy access to fertility drugs.

SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- More Chinese women are exploiting easy access to fertility treatments to skirt China's one-child limit, leading to a boom in numbers of multiple births, an official newspaper reported Monday.

The main pediatric hospital in the eastern city of Nanjing recorded 90 births of twins or triplets last year, up from an average of 20 in past years, the China Daily said.

While many women underwent fertility treatment because they could not conceive, others -- especially among the urban upper class and in conservative rural areas -- did so specifically to get more babies per birth, the report said.

In the late 1970s China began limiting most couples to one child, harshly punishing violators in the hope of limiting its ballooning population, which now stands at 1.3 billion.

Although the number of exceptions has broadened in recent years, the limits remain, despite fears that the working age population is shrinking.

While no exact figures were available, previous media reports said the number of twins born annually has doubled nationwide. There are no penalties for multiple births.

Fueling the trend is the accessibility of imported fertility drugs in clinics and pharmacies.
Although the Health Ministry banned their use by healthy women in 2005, enforcement was virtually nonexistent, China Daily said.

The only way to control the sale was by forcing chemists to ask for prescriptions before selling the drugs, an unnamed Nanjing municipal Health Department official told the newspaper.
The phenomenon of taking fertility drugs specifically to produce twins is not limited to China alone.

British doctors say around 10 percent of women seeking fertility treatment specifically ask for twins.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.