Seven hundred yuan (US$100) is the price tag for a fashionable dress or a pair of sport shoes. But to some pregnant women in poverty-stricken rural areas in Shaanxi Province, such as Tuo Yanfei, the money could mean the difference between life and death.

Tuo, a farmer in Liujianwan village in Suide County of Shaanxi, northwest China, who gave birth to a son in November, received money from the government which aids rural women giving birth in 25 poverty-stricken counties.

With the aid, averaging 689 yuan for each mother, Tuo was hospitalized, receiving free physical checks and delivery. Without it, she might have opted to give birth in her poor home, where her life might have been in danger.

"The program will be expanded to cover almost all rural, pregnant women in our province in a few years," said Sun Zhenlin, director of Division of Women, Children, and Community Healthcare, Department of Health, Shaanxi Province.

The central government's recent economic stimulus package (announced at the beginning of last month) is focused on people's livelihoods and will boost funds for the expansion of aid programs for rural, pregnant women in central and west China, local government officials in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces say.

Tuo's family earn about 5,000 yuan every year. Though affordable, the costs of giving birth and of raising the newborn child were still worrying.

If financial demands forced her to stay away from hospitalization, the risk of giving birth in a poor quality rural home was huge.

The cost of giving birth in hospital, ranging from about 500 yuan to 2,500 yuan, is a burden to rural women in Shaanxi, where farmers' annual income averaged about 2,645 yuan per person in 2007.

"When my granddaughter-in-law gave birth it was free from cost," said Tuo's grandmother-in-law. "The money we saved will cover the expense of her and her son in the month after birth."

"The death rate of pregnant rural women is a great concern of ours," said Sun. "We are endeavoring to aid more expectant women."

In a drive to help expectant women and expand public health care, Shaanxi put into practice a new government aid program on giving birth in the countryside in May 2008. The provincial government chose 25 poverty-stricken counties to try out the program.

"The ordinary people are very happy about the program," Sun said.

Up to the end of October 2008, 16,769 expectant women from rural Shaanxi were aided by the program, 90.73 percent of whom were fully exempted from the charge of giving birth in hospital, and a total of about 8.68 million yuan of government funds were used.