Chen Fang gets up at 5 a.m. and rides her electric bicycle for 40 minutes to a villa in Beijing's northeastern suburbs.
The villa is home to premature infants and toddlers born with congenital diseases. They are sent by welfare agencies in poor areas where their parents have left them.
Chen, 50, and 64 other "kangaroo mothers" are trained by the Little Flower orphan care project to offer the children "Kangaroo Mother Care" (KMC).
Founded in 1998, Little Flower aims to save and care for abandoned and physically fragile orphans.
KMC involves skin-to-skin contact between the baby's front and the "mother's" chest. This contact has improved the survival rate of premature babies. KMC has been widely used in the United States, Japan and Europe, yet in China premature infants are often put in incubators from birth.
To mimic the atmosphere of the womb, "kangaroo mothers" must sit still for a whole hour without going to the bathroom or breathing heavily.
After nine and a half years, this is the longest time Chen has held one job. She previously worked in an embroidery workshop and carton factory. "Being with these babies is more than a job," she says, admitting the children will never recall these "mothers" when they grow up.
"We spend most of our time hugging babies. The more you hug them, the more they smile," Chen says. Left in their cots, they get restless.
Despite the happy moments, death is always lingering. The fragile body is connected to an oxygen saturation monitor, and a stomach tube goes in a the nostril as these babies are too premature to suck on a bottle. They may die of hunger if they are fed too little or suffer small intestine necrosis if fed too much.
It's a 24-7 job, but night shifts are the most energy-consuming. Some babies can die of respiratory arrest in their sleep, so staff must be alert to apply emergency treatment or go to the hospital.
The two-story villa, donated by a Taiwanese couple, is divided into two wards: upstairs for physically-challenged infants and downstairs for those recovering.
Downstairs is a 14-square-meter play area. Dolls, picture books, colorful beads and balls and a full set of play house scenes are laid out for the "strange-looking" kids who suffer cleft lips, albinism, strephenopodia, biliary atresia or congenital heart disease.
Xiao Long is one of the early successes.
When he was sent to the home in February 2012, he weighed 930 grams on the tenth day after birth. Though Little Flower has since saved babies weighing 610 grams, Xiao Long's condition was critical at that time.
He also suffered pneumonia and anaemia.
Most premature babies have other internal problems, so not every one is suitable for KMC, says Liu Dong, a cardiac surgeon in Beijing's Anzhen Hospital, who has treated many babies in Little Flower.
When Xiao Long was a year old, he seemed no different from other boys of his age, and aged 2, he had been adopted by an American family.
"Every month their family will send pictures of Xiao Long. These photos make me happy," says Chen Fang, who was Xiao Long's nursing mother.
She and her colleagues are cheered when a child is adopted by a loving family.
However, many are not so lucky. From their first breath, they struggle to survive.
