RESEARCH ARTICLE Estimation of high risk pre

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground In the past decade there has been a dramatic decline in mortality of children under 5 years old in China, from 60/1,000 in early 1990 to a level below 15/1,000 live births in 2012 as recently reported by the National Health and Family Planning Commission (www.nhfpc.gov.cn, 2013 July), in great extent associated with the reduction of neonatal mortality [1-8], i.e., from 40/1,000 to <7/1,000 live births, along with significantly reduced maternal death rate (<25/100,000 births) and narrowed disparities be-tween rural and urban death rates. This was mainly due to effective implementation of prenatal care from early pregnancy, hospital delivery, delivery room resuscitation and neonatal special care, and medications for infec-tious diseases, diarrhea and malnutrition, among others [7-13]. Although national vital statistics revealed this trend, it is not known yet on how the high risk pregnancy would link to perinatal and neonatal death rate in total births and live births. As there are great variations i