Today's urban Chinese mothers are willing to start investing even before they get pregnant.

Chang is no exception. She spent several hundred yuan on vitamins supplements to improve her health before getting pregnant and another 400 yuan on buying radiation protection clothing.

Then after her daughter's first birthday, she started to feed her imported milk powder, one to two tins per month. Each tin of milk powder costs 160 yuan. Also the diapers she uses cost 100 yuan per bag and the baby goes through at most four bags per month.

A survey on the willing of China's urban and rural residents to have children, which was conducted by Horizon Research Consultancy Group in April, found that though most young urban Chinese want to have children, having a sound economic foundation and owning a house were prerequisites to having one.

And, how much monthly family income makes a couple feel financially secure to have a child? Respondents in mega-cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou thought the baseline should be 8,078 yuan, while in midsize cities like Wuhan, Harbin, Taiyuan, Xi'an and Kunming, respondents gave the amount as 5,169 yuan, according to the survey.

With more than 10,000 yuan in monthly family income, Chang needs to pay about 1,000 yuan in mortgage every month for their two-bedroom apartment and another 1,000 yuan for gasoline and car maintenance.

Chang told Xinhua that her child's education will continue to be the bulk of her expense in the future.

She will send her daughter to a nearby kindergarten this year. The admission fees for three years is expected to exceed 20,000 yuan and she still needs to spend another 1,000 yuan each month for her child's food, books and toys.

A new term -- "child's slave" -- is frequently heard in today's media in China, playing on the term "mortgage slave."