Story: Pregnancy, birth and baby care

Babies on a nursery trolley, 1944

Babies on a nursery trolley, 1944

Nurses stand alongside a nursery trolley in 1944. The tightly wrapped bundles in the trolley slots are babies. Nurses wheeled the trolleys into the mothers' rooms at feeding time and took the babies back to the nursery when this was over. Newborn babies were kept apart from their mothers in separate nurseries in hospitals until the 1960s and 1970s.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: PAColl-6203-01

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page:

Kerryn Pollock, 'Pregnancy, birth and baby care - Postnatal and baby care', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/photograph/26180/babies-on-a-nursery-trolley-1944 (accessed 29 March 2024)

Story by Kerryn Pollock, published 5 May 2011, reviewed & revised 24 Oct 2018