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Kōrero: Pregnancy, birth and baby care

Delivery suite, Paraparaumu Maternity Home, 1971

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Delivery suite, Paraparaumu Maternity Home, 1971

By the 1930s most women gave birth in maternity hospitals. Women laboured in beds in delivery suites surrounded by medical apparatus. This is a typical delivery suite, at Paraparaumu Maternity Home on the Kāpiti Coast. The nurse in charge, Miss T. Dillstone, is displaying the oxygen cylinder which was used to assist babies who were having trouble breathing after birth.

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Alexander Turnbull Library, Dominion Post Collection (PA-Group-00685)

Reference: EP/1971/4025/13

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.

Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Kerryn Pollock, Pregnancy, birth and baby care – Childbirth, 19th century to 1950s, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/photograph/26167/delivery-suite-paraparaumu-maternity-home-1971 (accessed 4 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Kerryn Pollock, i tāngia i te 29 March 2011.