Babies born on January 23, the first day of the Year of Dragon at the No.1 People's Hospital in Xiangyang, Hubei Photo: CFP

　　The highlight of this year's Spring Festival family reunion dinner with the in-laws for Feng Xianmin, a 31-year-old mother-to-be, was assembling a pram with her husband for their first-born, due in late April, at their home in Baoshan district in Shanghai.

　　"We are all very excited about our daughter," Feng told the Global Times. "My husband and I planned the whole pregnancy very carefully as we wanted a dragon baby for good fortune."

　　The dragon has been considered the symbol of the emperor of imperial China since ancient times, and it represents strength, wisdom and good fortune in Chinese folklore.

　　The Year of Dragon is widely recognized in the present day as one of the luckiest years among the 12 Chinese Zodiacs.

　　Many parents-to-be, superstitious or not, see the Year of Dragon as a timely year to have babies, hoping the Zodiac sign will protect and deliver great fortune to their children.

　　"I do not want to have a dog baby, as a dragon baby is believed to be the best among all the signs," Feng added.

　　Latest baby boom

　　A total of 180,000 dragon babies are expected to be delivered this year in Shanghai, according to the figures released by the Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission.

　　The 2012 figure of new born babies is likely to surpass last year's, and to become the largest number of annual newborns since 2005, according to Sun Changmin, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Population and Family Planning.

　　"The Year of Dragon is certainly a contributor to the baby boom of the coming year," Sun said. "The city's population is likely to grow until 2017, and we are calling it the third generation baby boom."

　　Sun told the Global Times that local residents in the Chinese mainland born in the last baby boom, at the end of the 1980s, have now reached an age suitable for giving birth.

　　Another main contributor to the increasing birthrate is the less restrictive one-child policy.

　　Since 2004, married adults, who are only children, have been allowed to have two children. According to local family planning authorities, over 87 percent of newly-weds in Shanghai last year qualified for this.

　　Other cities, such as Chongqing and Beijing, are predicting a similar jump in the number of newborns in the Year of Dragon.

　　Chongqing's Population and Family Planning Commission predicts that the 2012 figure may surpass its all-time record of 320,000 births.

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