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...
Announcing the new website Destination Lijiang
发布者Nice - just popped over to the site - and also logged in with my gokm userid - so that was nice (not having to re-register).
The summary of scenic sites in gallery format is a nice touch. Vivid.
And the Do's and Don'ts section was nice to read as a reminder, but I expected more information on how to be a desirable tourist from the local perspective (aside from buying lots of souvenirs and pictures etc).
Snapshot: Yunnan's annual flower expo wraps up in Kunming
发布者Doing some research on rural projects and came across this ancient article on the yunnan flower industry - thought I'd bounce it. Good article.
Face masks finagled in Dali: officials punished
发布者Well...yunnan was one of the frontier provinces where errant criminals were banished...the Australia of China...
Video and interview - the Kunming Free Trade Zone
发布者The FTZ video was interesting, but most important is the new website - investinyunnan.com - as all of the economic development zones in yunnan are in chinese language only.
So let's see how well the investinyunnan.com site and the new emerging process for bringing in foreign direct investment, matching partners, government support etc works..
I'm sure there's be hiccups - but as long as everyone's committed to the success process - things should work out.
Video and interview - the Kunming Free Trade Zone
发布者Super timely and useful article. Thank you.