【LOS ANGELES TIMES】Quake survivors start bittersweet baby boom

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Quake survivors start bittersweet baby boom
May 6, 2009

http://www.theage.com.au/world/q ... 5-atxp.html?page=-1


The parents of newborn Luo Junjie lost their first child, Huilin, when her school collapsed in the earthquake in Sichuan province last year. Photo: Los Angeles Times


China's one-child policy has led to a newwave of children in the province devastated last May. Barbara Demickreports from Mianzhu.

    TEN months and 25 days after he buried his only child, Luo Gang became a father again.

    Forweeks after his 11-year-old daughter was killed in last May's massiveearthquake in China's Sichuan province, his wife cried souncontrollably that her family feared she might be having a breakdown.

   "If you don't have another baby, my sister will be grieving her wholelife," Mr Luo's brother-in-law warned him. Mr Luo said he was shockedby the tactlessness of the suggestion.

    "We were in a badway after the earthquake. My wife couldn't stop crying," recalled MrLuo, a 35-year-old welder, his eyes sunken deep with fatigue after along night waiting for his wife to give birth to their son. "Now, weare better. A new life has been created to take the place of the onethat was taken away."

    To say that survivors of the May 12,2008, earthquake, which killed an estimated 70,000 people, arerecovering is premature, as many are still living in tents andsearching for the remains of loved ones.

    But thousands ofcouples, most of whom lost an only child, have decided they cannotwait. The result is a bittersweet baby boom, the joy of each birthtempered by the rawness of recent loss.

    "Chinese people arevery practical," said a maternity nurse at Mianzhu City Hospital. Thenurse, who did not want to be named, said that eight of the 70 mothersin the maternity ward had lost children in the earthquake.

    Nobodylikes the term "replacement baby", but many of the newborns in Sichuanwouldn't exist if not for the deaths of their siblings in theearthquake, given China's one-child policy.

    In Mianzhu, 50women who lost children in the quake have given birth and 400 arepregnant, said Song Tao, director of family planning for the town.

    Familyplanning officials, who enforce the family size limit, are encouragingcouples who lost an only child to have another. The Government ispaying for fertility counselling, operations to reverse vasectomies andtubal ligations, and for the removal of intra-uterine devices, China'smost common birth-control method.

    The motives are notpurely humanitarian. The Government needs to quell resentment over itsunpopular limits on family size. Sichuan has long been a battlegroundover the policy, with the Government strictly enforcing the one-childlimit. (In many other parts of China, farmers can have a second childif the first is a girl, but not in Sichuan.)

    AmongSichuan's predominantly rural population, most people have noretirement plans other than the ingrained Chinese tradition thatchildren care for their elders.

    "The earthquake very muchhighlights the vulnerability of the one-child policy," said GuBaochang, a professor of demographics at the People's University inBeijing. "These people are not covered by any social security program.They rely completely on their children for elderly support. And it'snot just money. Once they are old, without children they have no placein society."

    It might sound calculating, but a child's death is an economic and emotional catastrophe for many Chinese couples.

    "Wespent all our money on our child. The money is gone. The child isgone," said Liu Shengying, 39, whose 18-year-old daughter died withmost of her classmates when her school collapsed. After the earthquake,Ms Liu had her IUD removed and her husband had surgery for a prostatecondition. She is now five months into a difficult pregnancy.

    "Ican't say I feel good about this pregnancy," she said. "By the timethis baby is grown up, we will be old. We won't be able to retire untilthen."
    Liu said that 40 per cent of the mothers of her daughter's classmates were pregnant.

    Atthe hospital, even as Luo Gang's eyes sparkle when he speaks of thebaby, he averts his face at the mention of his daughter, Huilin. Hisvoice has a hint of a quaver when he tells how she delighted in cookingbreakfast for her parents.

    On April 7, the couple's baby, Junjie, was born 2½ weeks before his due date, but just in time for a new beginning.

    LOS ANGELES TIMES

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