Singapore tackles birth pains

Dr Love wants to get couples in the mood

Singapore is launching two new TV programmes to promote sex, in an effort to tackle its declining birth rate.

The programmes' host, Dr Wei Siang Yu, also known as Doctor Love, says he wants to educate the public in the "love, sex and baby strategy".

One show will give sex therapy, and in the other couples will compete to conceive, Dr Wei told the BBC.

Singapore has one of the world's lowest birth rates, with only 1.24 children born to each woman in 2003.

Dr Wei told the BBC World Service's World Today programme that the Dr Love Talk Show will invite people to come and share their "seduction strategy" and will include tips on massage, communication and sex life.

The Dr Love Super Baby Making Show will feature couples from around the world in competition to conceive first.

Dr Wei said that despite the sensational aspects of the shows, his fundamental motivation was to "edutain" - educate and entertain at the same time.

"Making babies is not all about sex. It's really about a lifestyle design. I think there's a certain lifestyle angle about it, on how to eat and what to exercise and how to manage your stress and how to have a healthy embryo," he said.

He said he hoped people would find it easier to absorb this information from the shows' "Sesame Street format" than from other media.

Dr Wei has tackled Singapore's plummeting birth rate before.

He founded a Sex in the Air campaign in 2002, during which teenagers too embarrassed to ask about sex could text doctors for information.