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<b>Background</b>: Scientists disagree on whether prenatal malnutrition has long-term influences on women's reproductive function, and empirical evidence of such long-term effects remains limited and inconsistent. <b>Methods</b>: Using the retrospective pregnancy history of 12,567 Chinese women collected in a nationally representative sample survey in 2001, this study conducted difference-in-differences analyses to investigate the relationship between prenatal exposure to the 1959-1961 Great Leap Forward Famine in China and the subsequent risk of involuntary foetal loss, including miscarriage and stillbirth, and how this relationship changes between the rural and urban populations. <b>Results</b>: Prenatal exposure to the Great Leap Forward Famine had no long-term effect on women's risk of miscarriage. Such an exposure increased the risk of stillbirth among urban women but not among rural women. <b>Conclusions</b>: The results support the foetal origins hypothesis. The significant urban-rural difference in the effect of prenatal famine exposure on stillbirth suggests the presence of a long-term negative foetal origins effect and a strong selection effect caused by famine-induced population attrition.