Prenatal Nutrition Surges +37.6%: Category Trends Reshaping China's Maternity & Baby Market in 2025

The Bottom Line

The most significant story in China's maternity and baby market is not the CN¥ 50.93 billion infant formula segment that dominates headlines. It is the rapid emergence of maternal nutrition as a high-growth category, reaching CN¥ 4.13 billion in 2025 with +37.6% YoY growth. This shift from "baby first" to "mother and baby equally important" is creating new opportunities across prenatal supplements, stage-specific formulations, and emerging ingredients such as Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) and protein. For brands with strong scientific credentials, the maternal nutrition segment offers the highest growth-adjusted returns in the entire maternity and baby ecosystem.

Feeding: Infant Formula Remains the Category Anchor

Infant formula continues to anchor the maternity and baby market at CN¥ 50.93 billion (+18.1% YoY), making it the largest single category by a substantial margin. The growth rate reflects premiumisation as parents trade up to organic and specialised formulas, platform-driven promotional competition, and inventory restocking cycles.

Baby food contributes an additional CN¥ 7.61 billion (+12.2% YoY), driven by growing demand for complementary feeding products. Together, feeding-related categories exceed CN¥ 58.5 billion, representing approximately 26% of the total maternity and baby online market.

Care: Toiletries and Products Show Premiumisation

Baby toiletries emerged as a strong growth category at CN¥ 22.83 billion (+21.0% YoY), outpacing the broader baby products category. This above-average growth reflects premiumisation trends: parents are upgrading from basic hygiene products to gentle, natural-ingredient formulations marketed as safe for sensitive infant skin.

Baby products reached CN¥ 37.53 billion (+8.5% YoY), maintaining its position as the second-largest category. Baby diapers contributed CN¥ 35.31 billion (+4.4% YoY), with modest growth reflecting the category's mature nature.

Maternal care, however, declined -5.0% to CN¥ 4.0 billion, suggesting that traditional postpartum care products face disruption from more targeted, ingredient-specific alternatives.

Supplements: The Fastest-Growing Frontier

The nutrition supplement segment tells the most compelling growth story. Combined baby nutrition (CN¥ 15.62 billion, +27.5%) and maternal nutrition (CN¥ 3.58 billion, +49.6%) reached CN¥ 19.75 billion, growing at nearly triple the rate of the overall market.

Within this segment, the sub-category analysis reveals transformative trends:

Established ingredients scaling rapidly:

• Calcium-iron-zinc: CN¥ 5.65 billion (+48.6% YoY) — the largest sub-category with accelerating growth
• DHA/fish oil/algae oil: CN¥ 3.02 billion (+25.2% YoY) — maintaining strong demand
• Probiotics: CN¥ 2.68 billion (+16.9% YoY) — driven by gut health awareness

Emerging ingredients with explosive momentum:

• Maternal CoQ10: CN¥ 8.41 million (+2,455.1% YoY) — small base but signals genuine emerging demand^[1]
• Maternal vitamins: CN¥ 519.84 million (+392.4% YoY) — active-form prenatal vitamin formulations gaining rapid adoption
• Maternal folic acid: CN¥ 614.73 million (+69.6% YoY) — active folate driving renewal

Source: Moojing Market Intelligence

The common thread across high-growth sub-categories is bioavailability innovation. Active folic acid, active iron, and active calcium command premium prices because consumers increasingly evaluate supplements on absorption efficiency and clinical evidence.

Emerging Sub-Categories: Travel, Home Appliances, and Furniture

Beyond nutrition, several smaller categories showed impressive growth. Maternity and baby travel products surged +32.0% to CN¥ 1.69 billion, reflecting growing confidence among new parents to travel with infants. Maternity and baby home appliances grew +19.3% to CN¥ 5.69 billion, driven by specialised products such as bottle sterilisers and baby food processors.

Maternity and baby furniture reached CN¥ 21.97 billion (+19.0% YoY), benefiting from a broader trend toward dedicated nursery setups and safety-certified baby furniture.

Consumer Decision Patterns: Efficacy First, Experience Matters

Analysis of e-commerce consumer reviews reveals that efficacy accounts for 54.16% of purchase decision weight for prenatal supplements. Ingredients (9.4%), ease of swallowing (9.23%), taste (7.75%), and odour (6.24%) round out the top five^[2].

On social media, calcium supplementation leads prenatal nutrition discussions with 150,179 mentions, followed by qi-and-blood replenishment (93,649) and iron supplementation (87,196). Weight management emerged as the fourth most-discussed benefit (84,136 mentions), signalling that modern Chinese mothers balance traditional pregnancy nutrition with contemporary wellness aspirations.

Male participation in prenatal nutrition discussions nearly doubled from 18.56% to 37.91% in 2025, with lycopene entering the top four pre-conception ingredients. This transforms the addressable market to couples preparing for conception together.

Strategic Implications

1. Invest in bioavailability science — Active-form ingredients are the primary differentiator driving premium pricing
2. Build stage-specific product lines — Elevit's success with four-stage pregnancy products demonstrates that segmented positioning unlocks outsized growth
3. Target the prenatal preparation market — Male fertility preparation represents a newly addressable segment
4. Expand beyond core categories — Travel, home appliances, and furniture are growth vectors

This article is based on data from Moojing Market Intelligence (魔镜洞察). For methodology details and data sources, please refer to the full report.

Contact: [email protected]

^[1] CoQ10 growth figure reflects a very small base; absolute market size remains nascent.

^[2] Consumer decision analysis derived from e-commerce platform review data across major Chinese platforms tracked by Moojing Market Intelligence.