Chinese parents-to-be seek more fertile ground abroad

SHANGHAI: The easing of China´s one-child policy was a godsend to Zhang Yinzhe and his wife Xu Mengsha, who had decided they wanted to use in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) to freeze an embryo in the hope of one day having a second child.

But most IVF procedures are restricted in China to couples who are infertile, and surging demand at overwhelmed reproductive clinics since the policy was relaxed two years ago would anyway have meant months of waiting. So the Beijing couple flew to Thailand, part of a wave of Chinese spilling overseas into Southeast Asia, the United States, and elsewhere in a test-tube baby boom.

“There is an old saying in China: a son and daughter complete the family,” said Zhang, a 31-year-old airline pilot. Zhang spoke after a consultation at Bangkok´s Piyavate Hospital, its walls festooned with Mandarin-language posters on IVF as other Chinese patients waited their turn. Definitive numbers on China´s share of the assisted-reproduction tourism sector are unclear, but its spending was estimated by the state-linked Qianzhan Industry Research Institute to have grown 22 percent annually to $1.4 billion in 2017. Further rapid growth is expected. Overseas clinics are adding Mandarin-speaking staff, Chinese-language websites, and increasingly marketing to Chinese seeking a second or even third child.

Chinese figures estimate that 90 million women became eligible for another child once the family-planning policy was relaxed, and more second children were delivered last year than first-borns. But Chinese couples are increasing having children later, past their reproductive primes, and may require help from science. Around 12 percent of the childbearing population are unable to conceive naturally, according to Chinese studies, yet China only has about 400 licensed IVF clinics, where waiting lists can approach one year. IVF involves combining egg and sperm in a lab and implanting any viable embryos into the womb.

The one-child policy caused birth rates to plummet, and China eased it to ensure a big enough future workforce to support its fast-aging population. But it still bans or restricts fertility options like egg donations, surrogate motherhood, gender selection, and freezing embryos for later use partly over fears that opening the floodgates could spark a population explosion.