‘Dragon baby’ fever sends nursing costs soaring

Changchun (CNS) -- Nursing services have become more expensive as a mania grips young couples in Changchun, capital of northeast China's Jilin Province, to give birth to a Dragon baby this year.

A Dragon baby needs to be born before the close of the Chinese Year of the Dragon which was just ushered in this January.

In normal years, the best nurses here are paid no more than 5,000 yuan per month even during booms in baby births that usually occur in July and August.

Yet now as the Dragon year dawns, senior nurses can command as much as 7,000 yuan per month, and are almost fully booked for the first half of the year.

Not only are nurses benefiting from Chinese traditions, formula and diaper merchants are increasing their warehouse space and stocks in the hopes of benefitting from a price hike.

Gold accessory stores came up with the idea of baby lockets and bracelets to tap the emerging market. A jewelry company director told CNS that the number of orders for this kind of trinket has almost doubled compared to last year, mostly for babies and carrying images of a dragon.

Experts warn that irrational indulgence and the overdose of love coming the way of dragon babies is likely to produce a somewhat stressed young generation in the future, when they enter schools or start working.