Babies born on January 23, the first day of the Year of Dragon at the No.1 People's Hospital in Xiangyang, Hubei Photo: CFP

The highlight of this year's Spring Festival family reunion dinner with the in-laws for Feng Xianmin, a 31-year-old mother-to-be, was assembling a pram with her husband for their first-born, due in late April, at their home in Baoshan district in Shanghai.

"We are all very excited about our daughter," Feng told the Global Times. "My husband and I planned the whole pregnancy very carefully as we wanted a dragon baby for good fortune."

The dragon has been considered the symbol of the emperor of imperial China since ancient times, and it represents strength, wisdom and good fortune in Chinese folklore.

The Year of Dragon is widely recognized in the present day as one of the luckiest years among the 12 Chinese Zodiacs.

Many parents-to-be, superstitious or not, see the Year of Dragon as a timely year to have babies, hoping the Zodiac sign will protect and deliver great fortune to their children.

"I do not want to have a dog baby, as a dragon baby is believed to be the best among all the signs," Feng added.

Latest baby boom

A total of 180,000 dragon babies are expected to be delivered this year in Shanghai, according to the figures released by the Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission.

The 2012 figure of new born babies is likely to surpass last year's, and to become the largest number of annual newborns since 2005, according to Sun Changmin, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Population and Family Planning.

"The Year of Dragon is certainly a contributor to the baby boom of the coming year," Sun said. "The city's population is likely to grow until 2017, and we are calling it the third generation baby boom."

Sun told the Global Times that local residents in the Chinese mainland born in the last baby boom, at the end of the 1980s, have now reached an age suitable for giving birth.

Another main contributor to the increasing birthrate is the less restrictive one-child policy.

Since 2004, married adults, who are only children, have been allowed to have two children. According to local family planning authorities, over 87 percent of newly-weds in Shanghai last year qualified for this.

Other cities, such as Chongqing and Beijing, are predicting a similar jump in the number of newborns in the Year of Dragon.

Chongqing's Population and Family Planning Commission predicts that the 2012 figure may surpass its all-time record of 320,000 births.

Peng Xizhe, dean of the School of Social Development and Public Policy at Fudan University, who specializes in population studies, said the dragon baby boom will put pressure on both maternity wards and neonatal care at hospitals nationwide.

"We saw a similar surge of births in the Year of the Golden Pig in 2007 and in 2008 the Olympic baby boom," Peng told the Global Times. "Besides the symbolic meaning of being a dragon baby, being born in the middle of a baby boom may work against the child as resources are tight."

In Beijing, securing a bed to give birth has almost become mission impossible. Every bed at the Beijing Maternity Hospital, for example, has been booked through August, according to a local newspaper.

Yang Jianglan, chief of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Shanghai Children's Hospital, told the Global Times that the hospital has set up eight extra beds in the NICU to make sure babies in need can receive proper treatment.

"The expected dragon baby boom is putting pressure on our NICU staff," Yang said. "We are expecting a very busy year, similar to that in 2007."

Sun Yanzhi, a yuesao, or dry nurse, in Shanghai, told the Global Times, her schedule is fully booked until the end of November, and she is asking for a much higher fee from the new mothers.

"I used to charge about 5,000 yuan ($790) a month to help new mothers take care of their newborns," she said. "But I am now asking for 6,800 yuan and am still fully booked."

Good fortune or not

Li Chun, the mother of a 3-year-old boy, regretted her decision to have a baby during the "Olympic year" in 2008 as she struggled to secure a spot for her son at a good kindergarten in Beijing - nine months before her son is supposed to attend school.

"It is an absolute nightmare," Li told the Global Times. "I am still empty-handed despite my early start, and using all the connections I have to secure a place for my son."

Li said she and her husband wanted to have a baby during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, as they wanted something special to highlight their baby's birth.

Zhu Min, principal of privately-run Starry Fun Kindergarten in Minhang district in Shanghai, told the Global Times the school had over 1,500 applicants for the 120 places in the kindergarten class last year.

"The Golden Pig babies reached the age to attend kindergarten last September," he said. "We saw a 30-percent increase in our number of applicants."

"Babies born during any baby boom are set to face more competition," Zhu said.

"Kindergarten, primary school, college entrance examinations and jobs - personally I see no advantages to having babies in the Year of Dragon, and my wife and I had decided to postpone our plans to have a baby this year because of this," he said.