“Until the last few centuries, there was almost no way for us to stop children from dying. **It wasn’t until the rise of clean water, proper sanitary conditions, vaccines, better nutrition and other advances in health care that rates of child mortality started to plummet**. As recently as 1800, about 43% of the world’s children died before reaching their fifth birthday. Today that figure is 4% – still woefully high, but more than 10-fold lower. ([Location 565](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C3X6X695&location=565))” --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[optimism]], [[conditional-optimism]], [[progressing-slowly]], [[technology]], [[gratitude]], [[parenting]], **Source** -- [[260103133118 - B - Not the End of the World]]