Assuming the "hospital recommendations..." thread is still active, you MAY want to try the TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) hospital on WuYi Lu. I think it's called the "zhong yi yiyuan". Zhongyi is loosely translated as the TCM Doctor and "yiyuan" is hospital.
MOST taxi drivers know the place. They mix TCM with traditional western medicine, but lean towards the TCM. It's significantly lower cost than most of the other hospitals and has good, reasonable care for both deliveries and post delivery follow up. Cost is about ¥6-8k and they prefer natural deliveries over the c-sections, which are more popular (ostensibly for bikini lines). A c-section costs significantly more and you'll probably be stuck in the hospital for 1-2 weeks in recovery.
As with most Chinese hospitals, you'd better speak Chinese or have an on-call translator. You'll also need to supply your wife AND baby with food or hire one of the many hospital ayi's to help you out (nominal cost). There's a Green Garden restaurant (pricey) that you can have food delivered, from their take-out menu on ZhengYi Lu and Ren Ming Lu, an Islamic restaurant for non-spicy noodles, veggies, fried rice (but no greasy foods for the wife post delivery) AND you'll need to prepare this red thing egg soup (they have hot plates) to provide energy and vitamins post delivery. They hospital Ayi's can help you buy, cook, prepare, and clean the simple cooking things and eating things. I think EVERYONE who delivers babies in Kunming knows these things. You'll also need some high energy chocolate bars for the delivery, in case you go into delivery overtime (snickers bars work well - full of sugar and chocolate/caffeine).
Care is good and they're also a teaching hospital, so expect a small army of interns to duck in at least once a week.
In my personal opinion, most of the major Kunming hospitals are rather identical in terms of care and procedures, so the TCM hospital is popular, on par with the rest, and just less expensive, but again - you'll need good communications skills in Chinese OR an on-call translator.
If you don't have a vehicle or transportation - learn how to use UBER or the other non-taxi limo services to get you there and return you home post-delivery.
On that note - if you need a heavy duty baby stroller specifically for newborns - it's HEAVY but sort of collapsible, drop me a line here or PM (private message) me. I MIGHT be able to convince the wife to just donate it to you gratis.
If this is your first and you live within the 2nd ring road (preferably in the Pan Long district), drop me a line and we can give parenting tips to encourage you during the first 3-6 months - those are the most difficult because of baby's feeding habits (every 3 hours). We did formula with both kids. We used Dr Brown's bottles (glass and or non-toxic plastic) to help reduce gas.
We ordered diapers and baby wipes online - as carrying the boxes and boxes of that stuff is painful and inconvenient, however MOST baby stores in your neighbourhood will deliver if you ask - ESPECIALLY the formula AND they'll give you free gifts when you buy formula in bulk.
We raised our first on NZ formula and the second on the same brand, but made in China. Still pricey, but less than allegedly imported stuff. Wife was paranoid about buying formula online (even from tmall), so we bought formula from a baby store near our home, that we KNEW had been in business for quite some time (there are TWO within about 50 meters of each other).
You'll also need one of those plastic baby bath things (might be able to convince the wife to let ours go as our youngest can now bathe with wifey and prefers the bigger bath tub for maximum splashing joy) and bonding time with mommy.
Get a couple of fluffy but NOT LINTY towels for baby! Don't forget the baby powder and be careful with baby lotion - our kid is allergic to the Johnson's baby lotion. AND you'll need petroleum jelly or a kind of baby cold cream for the inevitable diaper rashes - but if you change the diapers regularly (like before feedings), you should be able to mostly avoid diaper rashes.
We use Pampers diapers, but that's just us...they're pricier, but we've never had problems (ok...we had one bad batch, but the store replaced the entire box with a new one) with leaks.
That's about it for rambling...just PM if you want to meet and or chat.
and remember...luck is NOT a plan...plan ahead, do trial runs to the hospital, regardless of which hospital you choose, and have your grab bags ready to go.
oh...and chinese hospitals tend to be baby machines - so they'll usually schedule your delivery and induce labor if you're too slow or the baby is too comfortable and doesn't want to leave that nice place.
Hope that helps...
Bringing a taste of Italy to Yunnan: An interview with Diego Triboli
发布者Ray
Great pictures!
I was first introduced to Cantina through a YFBC meeting (Jeff - thanks for the invite). Great place - great reminder to go find this place again! Phenomenal wine bar!
With 2017 CITM, Yunnan stakes its future to tourism industry
发布者Go Yereth!
China's foreign minister shelves trade concerns, turns to Myanmar's Rohingya crisis
发布者Burma has had several ethnic cleansings a la Bhutan over the last century.
@Alien
Rohingya are a minority in Burma. Of course it's not the solution they want but it's most definitely the solution the current diverse majority of Burma want, otherwise the west's former darling of democracy SKY would've immediately denounced the cleansing as opposed to her deafening silence.
It's a big issue now simply because it's a political pawn between the USA's Obama era China containment strategy and China's strategy for direct land access to the Indian Ocean, to support it's OBOR strategy.
Terrible - yes.
But how many of us REALLY know the religious politics of that area?
China's foreign minister shelves trade concerns, turns to Myanmar's Rohingya crisis
发布者China typically does not interfere in the sovereign operations of other countries on the scale of say other superpowers.
That said - Burma basically missed their window of opportunity to provide energy to power starved China. Yunnan now has a significant surplus of renewable energy that required a Beijing policy to remediate.
We only know about the Rohingya based on rather biased western media coverage. Remember the "Arab Spring" which the media initially gushed over - not so gushy now that we're in the "Arab Winter", eh?
Best solution is probably to try to help the Rohingya settle in a sustainable and humane manner in Bangladesh because Myanmar seriously doesn't want them back. Perhaps POTUS Trump can outsourcing the Great Wall of the USA to Myanmar also...
This article also apparently neglected to mention that Myanmar is or was an Obama era pivot to "contain" China (an utterly moronic, unsustainable, and irresponsible global policy).
China considering plan to make Xinjiang desert a new California
发布者Seems China can also use water resources in addition to economic resources to balance the relationships with India and Bangladesh.
Not a pleasant thought for water-strapped India - but a future reality.