(Yicai Global) May 19 -- Against the backdrop of a low birth rate and high childbirth costs, many provinces and cities in China have brought in policies to boost medical insurance support for childbirth, such as extending coverage to fertility treatments and raising the reimbursement ratio of infant medical insurance.

The Zhejiang Provincial Healthcare Security Administration issued a draft on May 5 to solicit opinions on including childbirth analgesia and fetal ultrasound tests during pregnancy into the coverage of maternity insurance. It also sought to raise the reimbursement ratio of medical insurance for newborn babies aged to those aged six months to about 10 percentage points higher than that of ordinary urban and rural residents.

The Jiangxi Province Healthcare Security Administration released a notice in March to include painless childbirth in the reimbursement coverage from March 8.

These policies provide more practical support and technical guarantee for pregnant women’s reproductive health and healthy babies, highlighting respect for life and care for the health of pregnant women and fetuses, Dong Yuzheng, director of the Guangdong Academy of Population Development, told Yicai Global.

In recent years, the number of infertile couples in China also has increased, but fertility treatments are expensive, and there have been calls to include techniques like in-vitro fertilization into medical insurance coverage.

In this regard, the Beijing Municipal Medical Insurance Bureau unified the pricing of 53 assisted reproductive technologies at public hospitals in February, and planned to include 16 techniques, including common embryo transfer and sperm selection, into coverage but it issued another document on April 13 to delay the schedule.

Hunan and Sichuan provinces have also said that they will explore the inclusion of commonly used fertility treatments into the scope of medical insurance to reduce the burden on the masses.

The timely inclusion of expenses related to assisted reproductive technologies into medical insurance is very important in reducing the financial pressure on patients and helping them have healthy babies, Dong said.

China had 10.62 million births last year, a decline of 1.38 million births from 2020, representing a birth rate of 0.75 percent.

Editor: Zhang Yushuo, Peter Thomas