Feature: Giving China's orphans a chance at life

Chen Fang gets up at 5 a.m. and rides her electric bicycle for 40 minutes to a villa in Beijing's northeastern suburbs.

The villa is home to premature infants and toddlers born with congenital diseases. They are sent by welfare agencies in poor areas where their parents have left them.

Chen, 50, and 64 other "kangaroo mothers" are trained by the Little Flower orphan care project to offer the children "Kangaroo Mother Care" (KMC).

Founded in 1998, Little Flower aims to save and care for abandoned and physically fragile orphans.

KMC involves skin-to-skin contact between the baby's front and the "mother's" chest. This contact has improved the survival rate of premature babies. KMC has been widely used in the United States, Japan and Europe, yet in China premature infants are often put in incubators from birth.

To mimic the atmosphere of the womb, "kangaroo mothers" must sit still for a whole hour without going to the bathroom or breathing heavily.

After nine and a half years, this is the longest time Chen has held one job. She previously worked in an embroidery workshop and carton factory. "Being with these babies is more than a job," she says, admitting the children will never recall these "mothers" when they grow up.

"We spend most of our time hugging babies. The more you hug them, the more they smile," Chen says. Left in their cots, they get restless.

Despite the happy moments, death is always lingering. The fragile body is connected to an oxygen saturation monitor, and a stomach tube goes in a the nostril as these babies are too premature to suck on a bottle. They may die of hunger if they are fed too little or suffer small intestine necrosis if fed too much.

It's a 24-7 job, but night shifts are the most energy-consuming. Some babies can die of respiratory arrest in their sleep, so staff must be alert to apply emergency treatment or go to the hospital.

The two-story villa, donated by a Taiwanese couple, is divided into two wards: upstairs for physically-challenged infants and downstairs for those recovering.

Downstairs is a 14-square-meter play area. Dolls, picture books, colorful beads and balls and a full set of play house scenes are laid out for the "strange-looking" kids who suffer cleft lips, albinism, strephenopodia, biliary atresia or congenital heart disease.

Xiao Long is one of the early successes.

When he was sent to the home in February 2012, he weighed 930 grams on the tenth day after birth. Though Little Flower has since saved babies weighing 610 grams, Xiao Long's condition was critical at that time.

He also suffered pneumonia and anaemia.

Most premature babies have other internal problems, so not every one is suitable for KMC, says Liu Dong, a cardiac surgeon in Beijing's Anzhen Hospital, who has treated many babies in Little Flower.

When Xiao Long was a year old, he seemed no different from other boys of his age, and aged 2, he had been adopted by an American family.

"Every month their family will send pictures of Xiao Long. These photos make me happy," says Chen Fang, who was Xiao Long's nursing mother.

She and her colleagues are cheered when a child is adopted by a loving family.

However, many are not so lucky. From their first breath, they struggle to survive.

Taotao was one who eventually succumbed.

"Everyone called him 'Radish'. His arms and legs were particularly thin and that made his head seem even bigger," says Lin Ying, who is in charge of "mothers" team.

Taotao weighed 4 kilos when he arrived at the home at one year old as a result of complex congenital heart disease (CCHD).

But he was a cute little boy in everyone's eyes.

"A few months after Taotao settled here, he had major surgery. Most of us couldn't believe he would survive it, but he did," Lin recalls. But just as he seem to be improving, he died during minor surgery aged 2 and a half.

Chen Fang was heartbroken when she heard the news. A year later, she still weeps when she remembers him.

Death can never be a taboo here. Taotao's urn was buried on a mountain where Little Flower staff still pray for him, says a staff member.

For CCHD patients, the death rate can be as high as 15 percent, says Liu Dong.

By August this year, the home had received 2,496 babies, including 211 premature orphans and 28 premature babies from poor families.

The survival rate from surgery was 95 percent.

Liu Dong is pleased with giving these babies a second chance to live, but what concerns him more is that many parents still give up their children.

Liu, 41, has a son and a daughter. When he gets a call - even in the middle of the night - he rushes to a hospital to persuade other parents not to abandon hope for their children.

But Liu says parents are not to blame. The expense of treating a severely disabled child can bring a family to ruin.

He told the father of a sick baby that one heart operation would cost 50,000 yuan. The father sighed: "I'm sorry, but my family is already 80,000 yuan in debt."

Liu once worked in a hospital in the United States, so he knows how China's healthcare system still lags behind.

"The social support system is more complete in the West. If a mother gives birth to an intellectually-impaired baby, the next day social workers will come to her home and offer help. On the third day charity groups will provide advice. She and her husband can go to work as welfare institutions will help to care for their baby," says Liu.

"But parents in China don't know who to turn to and how to cope with a sick child. They end up with at least one parent leaving his or her job and attending the baby at home."

That's why so many of China's disabled orphans are adopted by foreign families, Liu adds.

"To help families, surgeons cannot just perform surgery," says Liu. After doing many operations for free, Liu decided to join a more complex social support system.

In 2010, Chunmiao Children's Aid Foundation (CF) was established.

"Love and professional care - both are needed" is Liu's motto. He is proud of his foundation team, which boasts 34 professional volunteers, all experts from the best departments of Beijing's renowned hospitals.

"Over the years, we haven't expanded our program. There are still 55 beds in the home. It's money-consuming and we need a huge investment. Also, I'm thinking of other ways to help the orphans," he explains.

"Why do these premature orphans survive? Besides the hugs from their 'kangaroo mothers', they have breast milk from other volunteer mothers, which contains natural antibodies and helps them grow better."

He recalls how, at first, a lorry driver collected the breast milk and stored it in a refrigerator. Now most volunteers bring the milk in themselves.

Theoretically, the average care time for a premature baby is six months, but most stay longer because the medical conditions at local children's homes are poor. While waiting to be adopted, some orphans join a foster family and start school which are two other programs CF developed to help them.

Liu says orphans are an issue for all of society. His vision is that all children's homes will have a Little Flower program, not just for orphans, but for poor families.

"That may finally end the vicious circle of abandoning babies," Liu says. Endi