Medical discoveries and expanded health care mean that families - read women - do not have to birth 8 (my aunt), 10 (my aunt),12 (a neighbour's mother) or 16 (another neighbour's mother) children to ensure that 4 or 5 of them will survive the influenza, polio, smallpox, whooping cough, measles, mumps, rubella, TB and other diseases that killed many children before the age of 5.