From tradition to institutionalisation: The development of the postnatal care centres industry in Taiwan

While the practice of attending a postpartum care centre becomes common in Taiwan, where, recently about 60% of mothers in great Taipei area attended one after giving birth, the related research remains nonexistent. Based upon an ethnographic investigation, this explorative study focuses on 15 yuezi zhongxin (月子中心) in Taiwan and analyse the institutionalisation of postpartum care and its articulation with parents’ anxiety in nowadays global Taiwan. While the tradition of yuezi is a longtime established practice, Taiwan is a pioneer in its institutionalisation through yuezi centres. These centres witness a deep change regarding childbirth, parenting and intergenerational investment.

The paper will discuss three changes and their implications. First, we went from the management of the perinatal period by the private sphere to institutions’ taking over. The direct affective personal interactions of yuezi tradition are replaced by an emphasis of an expert discourse based on professionalisation, medicalisation, and technological surveillance. Second, this step from private to public showcases Taiwanese parents’ardent desire to invest “from the beginning” in expert care for the precious child in a context of dramatically low birth rates. These centres embodied an entangled knot of technologisation of reproduction and commodification of parents’ anxiety and aspiration for their children. Third, those institutions also witness an increasingly individualism among Taiwanese women and a redefinition of motherhood. The emphasis of mothers’ well-being, including their postpartum silhouette, modifies the conventional female expectations based on self-sacrifice.  It is these important shifts that will be discussed in this paper.