Undernourished women tend to deliver low birth weight babies (Karmer, 1987) and to have pregnancy complications (Baird, 1947). Perinatal mortality and prematurity rates were found to be high among short statured women (Barros, 1987).

The health of the general population as well as specific groups (infants, women, etc) has for long been an important concern for development studies.

The Indian Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act came into force in 1972, in response to the high mortality and morbidity associated with illegal abortion. However, 25 years on, both restrictions in the law and the way it is implemented through service delivery have failed to meet the aborti

In the last decade, several international and national movements have focused their attention, on the long neglected areas of women's reproductive health.

Breastfeeding and lactational amenorrhoea play a unique role in child health, birth spacing and fertility regulation.

This paper presents a part of the qualitative exploratory study conducted in rural Maharashtra from April 1994 to April 1996 to understand the issue of abortion from women's perspective.

There is a growing recognition that gynaecological morbidity is an important health problem among poor women in India.