This essay advocates a reproductive health care strategy, to revitalize the country's family welfare program. A major shift in focus is needed in the population policy and programs in order to incorporate a gender-sensitive

India has an extensive network of hospitals and health centres with a large field staff in the government sector, which has been providing primary health care. Of late this infrastructure has been effective in delivering immunization services to the community.

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

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.

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.

In most of the rural areas in India, bringing humanity to the light of day is collectively and deftly managed by the dai along with other experienced women and the laboring woman herself.

Women use images of earthen pots breaking, flowers or fruits falling, to symbolize the loss of pregnancy. kachha ghada phoota (UP Rajasthan), phool jhade ( Madhya Pradesh), kaacho padi gayo (Rajasthan), garbha-alasyam (Kerala) are some of the terms used to describe miscarriages.

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.

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.

In 1991, an article on the Maternity Care Program in Matlab, Bangladesh, reported a substantial decline in direct obstetric deaths in the intervention area, but not in the control area. The decline was attributed primarily to the posting of midwives at the village level.