Catshanghai

We spent today at Fudan University’s Gynecological and Obstetrics Hospital in Dalin Lu in downtown Shanghai.

We could have opted for the expatriate option where you pay upto 100 000 RMB to jump a few queues and listen to an English speaking doctor at places like Shanghai East Medical Centre. The reality is that expatriate medical facilities are attached to Chinese hospitals. If there are complications then the western clinic will call on specialists in the Chinese hospital to which they are attached. If you don’t need English language service you may as well stick to the cheaper Chinese option, because the health care is ultimately identical. On this basis Jenny was very happy to choose a Chinese hospital near our house. We expect to pay 10 000 RMB to the hospital, which will cover the costs of checkups, delivery, pre natal classes and accommodation.

You would have thought that you make an appointment and turn up to have a few tests in a quiet hospital before leaving for late morning coffee. Going to the hospital for a pre natal checkup is a major expedition. It was a real eye opener. Here are the steps that we went through:

Turn up at 9:30 am to queue up, check in and update paperwork
Chinese mothers have to complete an extensive portfolio of medical and personal information. I cannot read the documents, but they look as extensive as security clearance forms to work in the CIA.

Wait in a line at 10:30 to pay for two visits
Total cost is about 1200 RMB. You need to bring all the correct documents and keep every fapiao. What happens if you lose your paperwork? I imagine the baby will have to wait in the womb until the documents have been regenerated and processed.

Wait until 11:30 as Jenny visited all the testing stations
You have to collect a ticket and wait until it is your turn to be tested. The waiting rooms look like very similar to passport visa offices, only busier.

Wait until 2pm to get test results
We cheated by having lunch while Jenny waited for the final results.

Give a blood sample at 2:30 pm

Collect medication from pharmacy at 3pm

I am not very keen on waiting around for hours at a time, but I was happy to give Jenny moral support and it feels like a rite of passage. I’m happy to report that Jenny and the baby are both doing well at the moment. Jenny is four months pregnant. I am racking my brains for an English name, but they do not tell you the gender in China so this makes the process a little more challenging.

It is worth noting that Shanghai’s reputation for fine dressed women is put to the test during the maternity phase. I have noticed the prevalence of frumpy “Resist-Electromagnetic-Wave-Maternity-Clothes”. I’m not sure how effective they are or need to be, because the jury is still out about whether radiation from electrical devices is at all harmful to an unborn child. Let us suppose there is a grain of truth in the belief that excessive exposure to computers and mobile phones is bad for the baby then why on earth do the manufacturers make such ghastly garments? They reduce the pregnant woman to looking like a sack of potatoes. Surely there is a gap in the market for maternity clothes that preserve the dignity of the woman who wears them. Jenny made the point that Chinese families spend a lot of their household income on raising their child so this reflects a priority shift. That idea rings true in the UK, but that doesn’t mean that pregnant women have to be frumpy by wearing life jackets.

At least I’m married to a woman who can design her own maternity wear!