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Age: 29 years
Children: Three boys (11, nine and three), one girl (seven)
"Who wants to have big family?” she said.
“If you have fewer children you can give them clothes - otherwise they will just wander around without any clothes on them. So I went to a clinic near my house and got my uterus cleaned up," Urmila says.
Their small eight feet by ten feet room covered with a tin shade could hardly be described as a house. But it is enough to give them “a roof over their heads", as Urmila describes it.
Looking after three children, as well an eight-member extended family, in a small village 200km from Delhi proved virtually impossible with no real income. So Urmila and her husband decided to move to the capital, where she gave birth to another child.
Now she and all four children help their father in his work ironing clothes for the residents of an apartment in east Delhi.
"I was 13 when I got married. But my first child, whom I had two years after our marriage, was born dead. I don't know what happened, because he was born at home without any medical assistance," Urmila told me.
Since then she has had six more pregnancies. But since her fourth child was born, she has tried to limit her family in her own way.
"I don’t want to have any more children. In fact, I didn’t want any after my third child. But what can you do? I had no choice."
Abortion as contraception
As for millions of Indian women, the responsibilities of contraception lie with Urmila alone, rather than her husband.
"He co-operates but doesn’t take any precautions himself," she said.
So it is left to Urmila to do whatever she can. For her, the simplest option so far has been abortion. A clinic nearby comes in handy for the purpose.
But she has recently heard of contraceptive pills which are cheap and easily available. She does not know how they work, but says she is keen to try them out.
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