Women's health in China refers to the health of women in People's Republic of China (PRC), which is different from men's health in China in many ways. Health, in general, is defined in the World Health Organization (WHO) constitution as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity". The circumstance of Chinese women's health is highly contingent upon China's historical contexts and economic development during the past seven decades. A historical perspective on women's health in China entails examining the healthcare policies and its outcomes for women in the pre-reform period (1949-1978) and the post-reform period since 1978. In general, women's health in China has seen significant improvements since the foundation of People's Republic of China in 1949, witnessed by improvements in multiple indexes such as Infant Mortality Rate(IMR), Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI), etc. However, due to traditional Chinese ideology on gender inequality and complexities of Chinese political system, challenges in terms of many aspects of women's health, such as reproductive health and HIV/AIDS, are still mounting. History of Women's Health in China Pre-reform China (1949-1978) After the 1949 founding of the People's Republic of China, the country established its first public healthcare system, the Cooperative Medical Scheme (CMS), which devotes much attention to meeting the needs of the country's huge rural population. The CMS was consisted of a three-tier system: barefoot doctors, township health centers, and country hospitals. In the end of the 1970s, over 90% of rural villages had set up cooperative medical schemes (CMS). The implementation of CMS has seen significant improvement in population health in China, including female health. Studies by Mei-yu Yu et al. found that the female Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) declined from 170 per 1000 in 1953 to 136 in 1957, and female average life expectancy at birth rose from 44.8 in 1949 to 67.1 in 1975. Contrary to what Chinese census has manifested, Banister's studies have shown that female IMR is higher than male IMR in China at least since 1975. Mei Yu-yu et al. believed that such a discrepancy in IMR between female and male could be a result of preference for sons in traditional Chinese ideology, which may cause abandonment, unequal treatment or violence against female infants. In the PRC's early years, traditional midwives came to be viewed as dirty and unscientific. By 1959, over 750,000 midwives