It was the tragic death by suicide that has laid bare the daily trauma of the three sisters from a landless household married to an affluent family with demands for dowry from impoverished parents.

Reproductive health [1] practices among Muslim women in India have been little researched perhaps because of the widespread notion regarding the tight Islamic control over sexual behaviour and the sanctions against contraceptive use.

The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994 reiterated the need for appropriate health care services that will enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth and produce a healthy infant.

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.