(Photo : New Born Baby and Mother)

The regulations released by the provincial health department prohibit hospital workers to hand newborns over to third party persons without parental consent and presence.

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Obstetricians, as stated in the new regulation, will be forbidden to diagnose infant birth defects. Instead, such diagnoses must only be conducted by pediatricians, or in the case of complex diagnosis, consultation with multiple specialists or doctors from advanced hospitals will be allowed.

Unauthorized discharge of newborns from hospital wards was also prohibited in this regulation. A strict-door control system should also be implemented at neonatal and obstetrics units and surveillance cameras should be installed to better monitor hospital and ward foyer and hallways.

In case of stillborn babies, patients must sign an informed consent and the remains must be disposed accordingly.

According to the press release posted on the provincial health department's official website, the new regulation aims to protect the legal rights and interest of newborns and their mothers.

On August 9, police apprehended nine people who were allegedly involved in infant trafficking at the Fuping County Maternal and Child Health Care Hospital in Shaanxi.

The arrest followed after the police learned in late July that a doctor whose only know by his last name Zhang, also working in the said Health Care Hospital supposedly napped an infant by wrongfully claiming that the baby had congenital diseases, persuading the mother to abandon the treatment and permit Zhang to take care of the child.

Ever since, police have received reports of 55 similar cases from locals, in which Zhang was supposedly involved in 26 cases of 55.

The Police department has initiated investigations and follow-up operations into five of the said cases and was able to rescue three newborns.

The hospital's president and a couple of senior managers and three county government officials have been dismissed and fired over the infant trafficking.

Steps to ensure safety of both newborns and their mothers are always welcome and beneficial. Thus, we highly hope that this will stop newborn trafficking that is getting more and more rampant these days.