Since China changed its family planning policy last year to allow each couple to have two children, more young parents are welcoming new family additions. For working mothers, that adds a layer of responsibility and a further squeeze on their time.
Melody Zou, a 32-year-old Shanghai associate finance manager in a French advertising company, returned to work last month after giving birth to her second child. She has become part of what is known as bei nai zu, or women who pump and store their breast milk for later feeding.
Her sons are aged 3 years and 6 months respectively. She has her days carefully planned out. A babysitter stays until 10pm. Zou's parents pick up the older boy from school in the afternoon and take him to their home for dinner. Zou joins them after work and takes her son home. The baby is looked after by the babysitter, sometimes assisted by Zou's mother-in-law.
"I cannot be sure that I will get back home before 9pm, so I need to have the babysitter stay late," she says.
Zou doesn't pay her parents or mother-in-law for the help they provide, but she does cover the costs of food and other items for the children.
China relaxed its long-standing one-child policy to ensure sufficient numbers of workers in the future to pay for an aging population. The policy change met mixed reaction. Many couples said one child is enough, given the additional costs and the laborious process required to get children onto the best education track. Other couples reacted with jubilation at the prospect of having a second child.
In the first half of this year, the number of births in Shanghai rose between 25 and 30 percent from a year earlier, according to data from three major maternity hospitals.
The Hospital for Obstetrics and Gynecology affiliated to Fudan University reported the delivery of nearly 1,300 babies in May alone, a quarter rise from last year.
The First Maternity and Infant Hospital said it had 17,693 women registered as pregnant in the first half, a 57 percent gain from a year earlier. Deliveries rose 30 percent to 15,489.
Ai Xingzi, chief physician at the hospital, said there has been a "significant increase" in the number of pregnant women who are 35 years or older.
Many people have cited social problems related to one-child households — single children spoiled by parents and grandparents; single children who are selfish and don't grow up learning how to get along with others.
"Our first child was too lonely," Zou says. "Our generation grew up without siblings, which can adversely affect a child's personality."
Zou says she is very careful not to play favorites with the children since she has her second son.
"We must let the first-born know that parental love is not diminished when a younger sister or brother arrives," she says.
"Studies have shown that children in one-child families tend to be less conscientious, more neurotic and more pessimistic," says William Wang, a Chinese-American social psychologist. "The so-called 'little emperor' or 'little princess,' referring to children being the centerpiece of the family, often grows up less trustworthy, more self-centered, less competitive and more risk-averse. These issues should, in large part, be resolved under the two-child policy."
Of course, for women beyond reproductive age, the change in policy came too late for those who would have liked a second child, Wang notes.