China's maternal mortality dropped to 26.1 per 100,000 last year, down 51 percent from 2000, while the death rates for infants and children under five years old decreased to 12.1 and 15.6 per 1,000, respectively, official figures showed.

Under-one-year-olds' mortality rate decreased 62 percent from 2000, while the death rate for children under five dropped 61 percent, according to figures Health Minister Chen Zhu disclosed at a national conference Thursday.

Summarizing the remarkable progress China has made in promoting mother and child health care in the 2011-2010 period, Chen noted that maternal mortality continues to decrease while the female life expectancy has reached 75.2 years.

The Health Ministry recently issued an action plan for mother and child health care in 2011-2020, detailing goals in ensuring life safety, lifting natural population quality, diseases control, and improving nutritional conditions, according to Chen.

Under the plan, China aims to decrease its maternal mortality further to 22 per 100,000 and drop the infant and under-five death rates to 12 and 14 per 1,000 by 2015.

Limited by a number of factors, mostly the current phase of China's economic and social development, the country has found it still a severe challenge to fulfill its shared UN Millennium Development Goals in mother and child health, said Deputy Health Minister Liu Qian in an interview with Xinhua.

China has reported increasing new cases of cervical cancer and breast cancer in recent years, with 132,000 cervical cancer and 126,000 breast cancer cases newly reported annually, Liu said.

Meanwhile, birth defect rate rose to 149.9 per 10,000 in 2010, up 70.9 percent from 87.7 per 10,000 in 1996, and as many as 800,000 to 1.2 million new babies were born with defects annually, according to Liu.

Furthermore, health care facilities and resources for mothers and children remain insufficient, and many comprehensive hospitals have no pediatrics department and lack pediatrics professionals.

By implementing the 2011-2020 action plan, China aims to establish a fundamental health care umbrella covering mothers and children in both urban and rural areas, and provide them better access to health care services, Liu said.