When I opened the morning daily "The Star" on the 7th August 2006, I was shocked to read that the birth rate in the city-state of Singapore is only 1.24 children per woman. Home Affairs Minister of Singapore, Mr. Wong Kan Seng revealed that Singapore needs 60,000 births each year but the present rate is 35,600 babies annually. Singapore fears a low birth rate will have a long-term economic impact and increase the proportion of elderly citizens relative to those of working age, and will encounter rising social welfare costs.
Aha! You see, even the minister is worried now. The minister did not mention why there is low birth rate? He only mentioned that Singapore has intensified efforts to address the baby shortage in recent years with a raft of measures to encourage married Singaporeans to have more children. Little did the minister realize that most Singaporeans are under stress or imbalance in life which is probably the cause for low birth rate? It is not the question of not to have children, it is the problem for most married couples that wish to have children are unable to do so due to the following reasons:
(i) rising cost of living and cost of bringing up children vis-a-vis the annual income received over the past few years,
(ii) the space factor, this is because many Singaporeans find it difficult, if not impossible to own landed properties to house the increase family size,
(iii) problem of miscarriages and lack of confident in getting normal delivery,
(iv) Problem of unable to conceive or what we called infertility.
Factors (i) and (ii) involve policy making and the element of long term economic planning. I will focus only on factors (iii) and (iv) because they are my topics of discussion from the aspect of Chinese Metaphysics or the so called Feng Shui.
According to a survey on population growth, it was discovered that out of every ten married couples, there are basically two had the problem of infertility. Miscarriages and infertility is the syndrome of modern living. There is a high correlation between miscarriages and infertility with working environment, food consumed and lodging. The tense working life style nowadays makes many workers unable to have proper meals. Fast food is the substitute for many. Besides, in order to keep up the space of productivity as required by the organization, over time schedule is not uncommon. The end result is that the workers will go home with stress bodies which need a good rest and there is no time for sex activity. Even if there is sex, either because of duty-bound or other factors, the "stressed" sperms are too weak to make their way up the passage to rendezvous with the equally "tired" eggs. Under such circumstances, do you think it is possible for fertilization to take place? Supposed there is fertilization, I am quite sure the embryo w ill not be healthy embryo physically and it will "drop' anytime before mature just like other unhealthy fruits that drop before ripe.
(According to Webster's Dictionary, stress is "a state of bodily or mental tension results from factors that tend to alter an existent equilibrium." When our bodies are under stress, they respond by pumping more adrenaline into our system as a way to face the stress. The extra hormone not only makes our muscles tense, it disturbs the existing equilibrium such as irregularity in menstruation resulting in irregularity in ovulation. The long hour of wearing jeans and trousers on the part of the male workers will warm up the testes resulting in slowing down the process of healthy sperm production. I think Singapore will achieve her target of 60,000 births per year if the said minister outline ways and methods of undress the stress of the married couples. Return the existing equilibrium to them and try to provide favorable environment for the couples although other incentives mentioned earlier are of equal importance.
As I have mentioned earlier, two other factors that are of equal importance are food and lodging. As for food, every one of us knows that it is important to have balanced diet in order to have healthy body. This needs special knowledge and it is better to seek the advice of nutritionists so that you get what you want. I would like to touch a little bit on lodging or the place we live. Most of us would agree with me that we spend one-third of our time daily on bed, so the type of bed and the position of the bed is very crucial. As for the type, it is up to individual taste. What I want to stress is the position of the bed in the bedroom as well as the location of the bedroom in the house.
The Chinese Metaphysics dictates that for married couples to get descendants, they must stay in the room located in the Sang Qi or Tien Ee place. This is because at these two location the natural qi will help to harness babies and couples who make love in these type of rooms will give birth to smart, intelligent and healthy kids. To be effective and more accurate, the couples must sleep with their heads pointing towards the Yen Nien direction. By doing so, our bodies system will achieve equilibrium that is needed for reproduction. Equilibrium will ensure that we would recover our lost energy faster to allow our body's system works according to the preset formula like constant ovulation dates and production of healthy sperms and eggs that are necessary for conception to take place and resulting in delivery of young babies.
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