A special committee of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association was established Monday to promote pain-free natural birth in China.

It is expected that over the next three years, pain-free natural birth will be further regulated and provided for more women, cesarean sections will be reduced, and women will give birth in increased comfort, according to the association.

The committee, comprising more than 100 medical experts from major hospitals across China, will take various measures over the next three years, including providing technique guidance, regulating clinical management, conducting staff training, and promoting academic exchanges, the association said.

Jiao Yahui, chief of medical administration and supervision at the National Health Commission, said with economic and social development, Chinese people have higher demands and expectations for medical services, but that currently pain-free natural labor services are inadequate .

The commission is piloting a national program to promote pain-free natural birth across China to meet increasing demand, and more than 900 hospitals have volunteered to join the pilot, she said.

Pain-free, vaginal deliveries, which may rely on a combination of spinal and local anesthesia, has been widely promoted in many developed countries, accounting for more than 80 percent of all deliveries in some cases. But in China only around 10 percent of births are made through such techniques, according to Mi Weidong, director of the special committee established Monday.

This results in many pregnant women choosing cesarean sections, which are generally painless because of their use of epidurals and spinal anesthesia, with the birth-by-caesarean-section rate in some regions’ at 50 percent, he said.

“For thousands of years, it has been generally regarded natural that women have to endure severe pain for 10 hours or longer to give birth,” he said. “But with advances in medical technology, we should make the process painless. This is the purpose of the committee.”

Zhang Yanling, president of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association, said the lack of promotion of pain-free natural birth in China is due to multiple causes, including a shortage of anesthesiologists.

Promoting such such techniques across China can also help encourage birth in China by eliminating young women’s fear of pain when giving birth, thus easing problems brought by dwindling births such as population ageing, he said.