The First 1,000 Days cover art

The First 1,000 Days

A Crucial Time for Mothers and Children -- And the World

Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The First 1,000 Days

By: Roger Thurow
Narrated by: James Edward Thomas
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

An award-winning journalist and anti-hunger advocate explores the promise of-and challenges to-a transformative initiative to end early childhood malnutrition

“Your child can achieve great things.” A few years ago, pregnant women in four corners of the world heard those words and hoped they could be true; among them, Esther in rural Uganda, Jessica in a violence-scarred Chicago neighborhood, Shyamkali in a low-caste Indian village, and Maria Estella in Guatemala’s western highlands.

Greatness was an audacious thought, but the women had new cause to be hopeful: they were participating in an unprecedented international initiative focused on providing proper nutrition during the first 1,000 days of their children’s lives, beginning with their own pregnancies. The 1,000 Days movement, a response to recent, devastating food crises and new research on the economic and social costs of childhood hunger and stunting, has the power to transform the lives of mothers and children, and ultimately the world. In this inspiring and at times heartbreaking book, Roger Thurow takes us into the lives of families on the forefront of the movement with an intimate narrative that illuminates the science, economics, and politics of malnutrition, charting the exciting progress and formidable challenges of this global effort.
Child Psychology Developmental Psychology Infants & Toddlers Parenting & Families Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Relationships Infant Nutrition Pregnancy Africa Village

Listeners also enjoyed...

A Thousand Hills to Heaven cover art
Period Power cover art
My Diabetic Soul cover art
Empty Hands, A Memoir cover art
Who Knows Tomorrow cover art
Outback Spirit cover art
An Hour Before Daylight cover art
Learning to Listen cover art
Sistah Vegan cover art
Silent Tears cover art
The Big Necessity cover art
Ungovernable cover art
Australian Farming Families cover art
Modified cover art
A Doctor in Africa cover art
A Love That Multiplies cover art

Critic reviews

Malnutrition is often called a silent emergency, because it can be hard to see the damage it does to children around the world. In The First 1,000 Days, Roger Thurow makes readers sit up and take notice. He takes us to the four corners of the world--from the streets of Chicago to the villages of northern Uganda--to show how the right nutrition helps children not just survive, but thrive.—p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Arial; color: #002060}span.s1 {font-kerning: none}Melinda Gates, Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
"[Roger Thurow] gives an intimate look at the struggles many women face...Poverty, lack of training, and prejudice are at the heart of the world's malnutrition problems...Thurow provides just enough grim facts on infant and mother mortality, the scarcity of food, sanitary conditions for birthing, and the general plight of impoverished families to garner sympathy without being melodramatic, and he also shows how women and children thrive under the right conditions. In today's global society, the children of the world need a voice. Thurow has spoken and made the issue clear: children everywhere need better food and water if they are going to grow into healthy adults."—Kirkus Reviews
All stars
Most relevant
The book felt repetitive and filled with unnecessary information. It mainly listed statistics about the US, India, and sub-Saharan countries, and kept mentioning sweet potatoes in every chapter. I kept waiting for something more insightful, but it never came — overall, it felt like a waste of time.

Repetitive/ useless information

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.