Inconceivable: China's first 'sex ward' helps couples buck infertility
Staff Reporter 2013-01-18 08:44 (GMT+8)
A bed on China's first "sex ward."
Red represents fertility, according to Chinese custom. (Internet photo)
Wuhan Songziniao Hospital, located in the capital of central Hubei province and specializing in treating infertility, has created a "sex ward" to encourage pregnancy. The room tries its best to get couples in the mood to conceive, offering sex toys and even costumes for role-playing, reports Want Daily, our Chinese-language sister paper.
The special ward, funded by a donation from a women's charity foundation, was completed at the end of last December. As the first ward in the country to promote pregnancy, the ward utilizes no other medical equipment but pink walls, romantic lighting, a cushy sofa, a round bed, erotic art, sex toys and instructional tapes and books. In particular, the ward provides doctor and nurse outfits for couples to "diagnose" each other.
Stress, a condition which most people in China claim to experience, can reduce the chance of successful conception, according to Wang Chengdong, director of the hospital. He said that the hospital holds seminars teaching couples how to conceive and instructing them in the knowledge of fertility.
To hire the ward costs 580 yuan (US$90) a night. Reservations are currently backed up for three months. The hospital will arrange the best day for a couple to use the ward based on an evaluation of the couple's psychological, physical and outer environmental conditions. The hospital will also provide them with meals nutritionally evaluated to best help them to conceive, and clean sheets.
One in five couples in China reportedly has difficulties conceiving a child.
