China to offer free fertility treatment in bid to boost record low birth rate | CNN
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Hong Kong CNN — China is planning to offer free fertility treatment to citizens under its national insurance scheme in a bid to reverse its plummeting birth rate. The National Healthcare Security Administration said on Friday it would extend its coverage to help shoulder the costs for families trying to conceive. It said the new coverage would include assisted reproductive technology (ART) techniques and also cover labor analgesia to ease pain in childbirth. The most commonly performed ART procedure is in vitro fertilization (IVF). The administration described China’s falling population as one of the biggest obstacles to national development and stressed it had already added ovulation-inducing drugs to its coverage, to help “reduce the burden of infertility.” The expanded coverage is part of a wider attempt by Chinese authorities to persuade more people t