Before discharge, get the Medical Certificate of Birth done; choose the name in advance and do not write the wrong characters

This certificate is the prerequisite for hukou (户口 — household registration), insurance enrollment, and school. If birth was in a hospital, collect it from the facility that attended the birth. If birth was outside a midwifery facility, you need a parentage test first. For characters in the name, confirm the hukou system can type them.

Cost

No money spent. Done as part of discharge paperwork

Benefit

Article 23 of the Maternal and Infant Health Care Law: medical and health-care institutions and persons engaged in home delivery issue a uniformly produced medical certificate of birth for the newborn under rules of the health administration under the State Council. This certificate is the prerequisite for everything that follows: hukou registration, insurance enrollment, a medical insurance card, and kindergarten or school all need it. The State Council General Office’s 2015 opinion on registering hukou for people without one states: for births inside a midwifery facility, apply to that facility for the Medical Certificate of Birth. For births outside a midwifery facility, first obtain a parentage test from a qualified appraisal body, then apply to the agency entrusted by the county-level health department

Notes

Before filling it in, check parents’ names, ID numbers, and the child’s name character by character. Name characters must be typeable in the hukou system; rare characters make later paperwork hard. Changing a name or the certificate means reissue or replacement, which is far more trouble than checking on the spot. Keep the certificate separately once you have it — as important as the household register and ID card

Sources · 2

1. 全国人大常委会 (1994, 2017 修正). 中华人民共和国母婴保健法（第二十三条）. gov.cn/guoqing/2021-10/29/content_5647619.htm
2. 国务院办公厅 (2015). 关于解决无户口人员登记户口问题的意见（国办发〔2015〕96 号）. gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2016-01/14/content_1…