At 18, Sonam Purti is a very young mother in the village of Bundu. Her baby girl is just a few months old and she is full of apprehensions. With every day of motherhood come challenges big and small. Not only does she have to overcome the rigours of childbirth and the changes in her body, but she also has to get used to meeting her baby’s needs.
Sonam had a serious scare in the first week after the delivery in December. The baby stopped suckling and her temperature dropped. In infants, these symptoms can be deadly. Immediate interventions are needed, but for mothers like Sonam in remote villages trained medical help is hard to find. The result is that each year in rural India a large number of infants die in the first few weeks after they are born for want of institutional care and timely interventions.