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Somewhere along the way, the majority somehow learned of, and fell into, this 'trap'; a trap experts say is commendable and in tune with human passions of the day. This 'trap' is religion, a world of belief in the existence of a supreme being.

"We need religion and spirituality in life," says College of Medicine's Clinical Psychologist and Associate Professor Dr Chiwoza Bandawe.

"We learn from Psychology of religion studies that faith promotes good health."

Without religion, says Dr Bandawe, human beings are bound to be gnawed constantly by a sense of inadequacy, frustration and failure. This explains why, globally, most people are caught in the web of religious orientation.

Religion is, in other words, the easy, straight path to a fulfilling life.

"The benefits of religion far outweigh the negatives. Religion helps people become focused, and is critical in mental health because it helps them navigate from challenges," says Dr Bandawe.

However, religion is not always a faultless paragon of virtue, he notes; it sometimes renders its fanatics emotional in their deliberations, vituperative in their denunciations, and prone to engage in bitter, exaggerated personal attacks instead of concentrating their fire upon the merits of an issue.

"This leads to self-guilt, and may lead to condemnation of others," he says.

This is where religion turns into a trap because such individuals cannot be swayed from negative practices, even in the midst of such tragedies as poverty and disease.

A good example pertains to the issue of HIV and Aids. As Malawi teetered on the edge of a health- collapse between 1989 and 2004, some religious leaders were raising the torch of faith as a cure for HIV and Aids.

"This proved to be a hindrance to national efforts to contain HIV and Aids. We had people who died after stopping taking ARVs. Others died," says Mary Shawa, Principal Secretary for Nutrition, HIV and Aids in the Office of the President and Cabinet.

In the end, government officials were prompted to incorporate prayer as part of Malawi's three-tier response to HIV and Aids, and Shawa is impressed with results of the Nutrition, ARVS and Prayer HIV and Aids response model.

So well for HIV and Aids efforts, but the same cannot be said of best Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) practices campaigns.

Take, for instance, the case of Ketula Frank, Rose Thauzeni and Olive Nsona of Chilomoni Township in Blantyre.

Frank, a mother of four, says she has never delivered at the hospital and sees no value in seeking prenatal and antenatal services from health centres.

"Prayer, and not the SRH clinic, helps me deliver at home, without any hassles whatsoever. In fact, I deliver without those doctors and nurses. To me, faith in God serves as the best SRH clinic," she says.

The same applies to Thauzeni, who answers with questions.

"Have you ever heard of cattle seeking SHR services at the clinic? I have two children I delivered without health officials and will do that again," says Thauzeni.

Their story of faith does not end without Olive Nsona, a mother of four. "If hospitals are safe places for child deliveries, why do they have mortuaries close by? Have you heard of a church building that is adjoined to a mortuary?"

Theirs is a world of questions whose answer is always prayer.

Chances are that they may not be the only women who do not believe in modern SRH practices. Chikhwawa district is one other place, according to T/A Katunga.

"Fortunately, only a handful of my subjects are stopping their pregnant wives from visiting hospitals for maternal health services," says Katunga.

Chikhwawa District's Health Officer, Dr Fatsani Ngwalangwa-Kasinja, observes that, other than religion, cultural practices pose a challenge to maternal health services.

For Fred Kwacha, head of Malawi's traditional church, "imported religion" is to blame for maternal deaths.

"'Foreign' religion is to blame for all our problems, including maternal deaths. This never happened in the past, when we used to worship our ancestral spirits. Now the spirits are angry because people have lost touch with culture," says Kwacha.

While his conservationism has a strong strain of pragmatism, it also points to the fact that religion could beunder siege in Malawi.

This is evident in a joint May 2011 Ministry of Health and UNFPA report released in May 2011. The 'Abortion in Malawi: Results of a Study of Incidents and Magnitude of Complications due to Unsafe Abortions' report, the product of 2009 research, reveals that religious women constitute 85.2 percent of people who carry out unsafe abortions.

Although Henry Chimbali, Ministry of Health's spokesman, says the findings are not an attack on religion, the truth remains that they (results) forced some people to go home in silence- weighing the significance of such words.