Table of Contents:
- The professionalization of obstetrics in colonial India: The problems of childbirth in colonial discourse -- Maternal and child health services in the postcolonial era -- Bangles of neem, bangles of gold: pregnant women as auspicious burdens -- Invoking vali: painful technologies of birth -- Moving targets: the routinization of IUD insertions in public maternity wards -- Baby friendly hospitals and bad mothers: maneuvering development during the postpartum period -- Conclusion: reproductive rights, choices, and resistance.