Gramin Vikas Sansthan

In village Bedaru (South) Santoshkumari's mother-in-law is more enthusiastic about the BCC recommendations than her. She never misses a meeting where health issues are discussed. Even when her daughter-in-law is away visiting her parents, she attends these meetings alone though officially it is her daughter-in-law, who is the beneficiary. Manish is Santoshkumari's first child and it now six months old. Manish's grandmother says. "Even when bathua leaves were almost out of season, I went from farm to farm to pick them and fed them to my daughter-in-law."

Now that her daughter-in-law is lactating, she herself makes porridge from the bulgar they get every month and gives it to Santoshkumari for breakfast. Soon after Manish was born, her mother-in-law gave her the child so she could give him her milk. But Santoshkumari feared that she did not have any milk in her breasts. Her mother-in-law then gently massaged her breasts for some time and helped Santoshkumari lactate.

Both mother-in-law and daughter-in-law had learnt well their lessons in child health. At no cost were they going to compromise with breastfeeding.