abstract
Background: The act of giving birth is the only moment when both pain and pleasure converge at a moment of time. This experience of transformation from womanhood or wifehood into motherhood is a privilege reserved exclusively for women. Hence this transformation phase that is pregnancy and following childbirth has been contributed to have a great impact on both maternal and infant health. Janani Suraksha Yojana, under the overall umbrella of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), has been proposed by a way of modifying the National Maternity Benefit Scheme (NMBS). While NMBS is linked to the provision of better diet for pregnant women from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families, Janani Suraksha Yojana integrates cash assistance with antenatal care during the pregnancy period, institutional care during delivery and immediate postpartum period in a health centre by establishing systems of coordinated care by the field level health workers.