A cute baby boy crawls on a fluffy blanket, May 17, 2007. [Photo/CFP]

A breast pump, four baby's bottles and several plastic bags for storing milk became daily necessities for Xu Weiting when she returned to work from maternity leave.

She spent about two hours at work retrieving breast milk. Once the bottles were filled, Xu stored them in a company fridge until she left for home.

Xu, 30, who works for a clothing company in Beijing, continued the routine for 20 months, until her daughter turned 2.

She is just one of millions of working mothers who nurse their babies with stored breast milk.

More than 350,000 breast pumps were sold last year on taobao.com, an annual increase of 65 percent, according to statistics provided by Taobao, a major online trading service provider in China.

The company also said sales of breast milk related products surged in the first four months of this year - more than 2 million were sold - because of the baby boom in the Year of the Dragon, which is believed to be an auspicious zodiac sign by many Chinese parents.

"Besides, more young mothers in their 20s have joined our team and asked for suggestions on breast feeding at work," said Xiong Kun, who opened an online store in 2008 that sells breast milk products. "It's so encouraging to see that more young mothers are willing to store milk after their maternity leave."

Xiong said her customer base includes mothers living in small towns and western areas.

Experts recommend that mothers breast feed their babies until they are 2 years old. But Xiong said many working mothers don't have time to return home every three hours, so their babies end up drinking powdered milk.

"Pumping and storing milk in an office is not an easy thing," said Xu Weiting. "It took me two hours to do it, which forced me to work more efficiently. It was kind of a heavy burden on me back then. But I had to do it, because my girl was weak and refused to drink anything except my milk."

Fu Fu, another working mother who stored milk for her child, said the office where she works is about a one-hour commute from her home. "You can imagine the situation on the bus. Sometimes, I even thought of giving up."

But she continued storing milk for 30 months. "The understanding and support of my family and colleagues was more important than the exhausting commute," she said, adding that she didn't have an appropriate room to pump milk.

"Sometimes I went to the toilet. I know it's not clean, but I had no other choice," she said.

Both Fu and Xu said their experiences have made them appreciate the love from their mothers even more.

"After having my girl and experiencing so many difficulties feeding her, I felt the greatness of my mom. I'll buy her a bunch of flowers on Sunday for Mother's Day," Xu said.

zhengjinran@chinadaily.com.cn