In China, postpartum special care has been regarded extremely important for mothers to recuperate and feed the baby wholesomely. However, in the present age social system and family structure have changed, and the majority of mothers in the core family lack the postpartum care which is traditionally considered necessary.
According to the report issued in 2006 by the Council for Economic Planning and Development, Executive Yuan, the number of newborn will be less than the number of death in 2020. In that case the average financial burden will be quite high for each citizen. Therefore, it is necessary to increase birth rate to avoid this crisis. The best way to achieve this goal, based on most studies, is to provide good care of the baby so that the mother will not need to worry about it.
This study investigates the mothers’ needs of postpartum care and their desire to pay for postpartum service provided by sitter centers. 400 questionnaires were given to mothers in Taichung City and 354 were collected, of them 349 were valid.
83.2% of the responding mothers consider postpartum care to be important, but only 14% have paid for it. With government subsidy for birth and birth leave from work, 62.3 % of the mothers would consider giving birth to a new baby and pay for postpartum service provided by sitter centers. It is concluded that there is a potential market for sitter centers to provide postpartum care but accompanying measures such as government subsidy and work leave are necessary to encourage mothers to give birth to new babies.
