[History of the child's health: conquers, policies and perspectives].

The aim of this study was describing and reflecting about the aspects related to the social history and public policies for the children's health assistance in Brazil. A brief historical contextualization was realized concerning changes on the way the society views the child in Brazil and around the world, also perspectives considering public policies for the children's health in the national context were presented. It was possible to identify that the historical evolution of the child participation in the society is linked to the changes in the assistance public policies, which were demonstrated in the child death decrease and associated to challenges, like the morbimortality reduction caused by perinatal injuries and avoidable causes.