There really is nothing more miraculous than a new life, because when life is doing what it does best, we are assured that something important and elemental is still intact. Even when everything else appears to fall or fail, a new baby renews our faith in life itself, tells us that the great clock is still keeping time, and babies are still born with perfect little fingers and toes and little noses breathing ancient air.

Families welcome new babies with unequaled joy and reverence, and that is as it should be. It wasn’t long ago that birth was fraught with fear, when both mother and baby had a 1 out of three chance of dying in the birthing process, when babies regularly died of diseases that we treat easily today. All throughout history, we’ve held high expectations for the continuity of life, expectations that could not always be met depending on our level of evolution or progress at any given time.

It’s interesting to note that deep into history, cave dwellers gave birth more easily and without as many complications compared to modern man. Once our species began walking upright and when we eventually began to farm, our bodies started to change: women didn’t grow as tall, brains got bigger, pelvises grew smaller, and babies in utero became fatter than before as carbohydrates became a regular part of our diets, which plumped up all the babies. Cave dwellers, who mostly feasted on meat, seemed to have an easier time giving birth. Archaeologists see fewer baby skeletons in cave-dweller grave sites compared to those of more modern farming communities. So, quirks in our evolution and development now make giving birth more dangerous for us than it is for any other mammal, including our ape cousins.

Still, we’ve come a long way: forseps, C-sections, antibiotics, washing hands, and things like sonograms, have advanced child birthing leaps and bounds. It’s still not perfect: in some countries, where healthcare is inaccessible, death rates for mothers and babies are still too high. There are still complications that arise that injure mothers and cause children to be born with disabilities. But we have, thankfully, learned so much over the course of just a few centuries of our more than 200,000 years here on Earth.

Just as medicine changes over time, so does the culture of childbirth. My daughter’s recent experience has very little in common with my own 35 years ago. For one thing, couples these days have new rules for their hospital stay. Some are electing to have a relaxing and private few days in the hospital without every cousin and uncle and aunt dropping by to see the new arrival. My daughter almost died when I told her people stood there in the same room with the new mother and baby smoking cigars. Couples can elect to have a no visitor rule, where not even the grandparents come to visit.

Also, daughters don’t need mothers as much as they used to. My daughter has an app on her phone that tells her when to breastfeed, or how long she nursed. A lactation nurse stopped by four days after my daughter left the hospital to see how things were going. She talked to her about baby rashes and sleep cycles and feeding schedules. And my daughter took a sleep training class online before the baby arrived and the nurse approved.

The equipment they have for babies is just fantastic, with bassinets that look like small pods on tripods legs, with a side that pulls down level to the bed, so there’s an easier transition to the parents’ bed for feedings. Highchairs look like award-winning contenders for Scandinavian design, and fabrics for clothes and blankets are all flax and soft linens and 100% organic and neutral colored and hypo-allagenic.

And new parents are more relaxed, what with apps that help them parent, and equipment that keeps their babies extra safe and comfortable, and podcasts that tell them how to parent well, and alarms on their phones to remind them of things, and online baby registries that act like Santa Claus with all sorts of nifty gifts arriving right to their doorstep.

It’s a wonder my kids made it out of childhood alive. We had wicker basinettes and blankets handed down from others, and sheets probably sprayed with chemicals so they were inflammable. I know other people my age who slept in open dresser drawers. Most people my age never had a car seat or a seatbelt, and yet I am here to talk about it.

As much as we laugh at the new pampered generation, I must admit I’m jealous. Things seem cozier, even simpler, and certainly safer. My daughter’s baby is quiet and content and even mom and dad have a calm about them I never had. Best of all, the parents work as a team, because parental roles have certainly changed through the years.

All these new things are things I can point to in this new world and say, yep, this is really, really good.