The recent reproductive and child health (RCH) combi

Most family planning and reproductive health researches and services in India, as elsewhere, target women, that too ever married women in reproductive ages. Consequently, these services as well as researches have not addressed a large number of issues concerning men.

Every young girl dreams of becoming a mother after marriage. She looks forward to this period with the utmost hope and joy to see that her child develops well in her womb, has no birth defects and grows up well, so that she can be a proud mother of that child.

A growing recognition that population dynamics, quality of life and women's status are closely inter related argues strongly for a fresh look at India's population program.

This idea underlies traditional care during pregnancy. It may be true that in pregnancy a woman has more access to food and other things. But, communities have ways to oversee foetal growth and development. They subject women to restrictions and recommendations regarding diet and activities.

The knowledge road to health has many pitfalls -and women in less developed countries and particularly those who are poor, illiterate and unemployed, face crucial tradeoffs when they attempt to fulfil their biological, social and other needs.

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

The number of maternal deaths that take place every day in India exceeds the total number of such deaths that occurs in all developed countries in a month.

Traditional care consists of numerous practices which mean to bring her back to 'rosy health and vigor' and to enable her to feed her child with sufficient nutritious milk. As the woman's health is all the more vulnerable after child-birth, practices are adopted to sustain her health.

A major challenge under the new RCH approach is operationalising the paradigm shift to a comprehensive and integrated program into reality.