SEOUL, January 16 (AJP) -South Korea has one of the world’s lowest birth rates, but when it comes to babies, the country remains serious.
The 2026 Momsholic Baby Fair, one of Korea’s largest exhibitions dedicated to pregnancy, childbirth and childcare, opened Thursday at COEX Hall A in southern Seoul. The fair runs through Jan. 18, bringing together about 500 booths operated by some 200 companies from Korea and overseas.
Despite shrinking family sizes, the exhibition hall was filled with expectant parents, young couples and families browsing products that span the full arc of early life — from pregnancy care and delivery essentials to infant nutrition, early childhood education programs and children’s room interiors. One dedicated zone, dubbed the “Good Sleep Project,” focused on rest, recovery and healing for parents and babies alike.
Organizers said the event is designed to offer practical, hands-on information for expectant and first-time parents, while also easing financial pressure by enabling direct transactions between companies and consumers, often at discounted prices.
The fair unfolds against the stark demographic reality facing South Korea. The country’s total fertility rate — the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime — stood at about 0.80 from January to October last year, among the lowest in the world.
Yet inside COEX, the mood was less about decline than determination: strollers rolling past crowded aisles, product demos drawing small audiences, and parents-to-be comparing notes on how to prepare for a future that, for them at least, is already on the way.
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