New Zealand’s Karitāne Hospitals and Maternal Mental Health Care, 1907 to 1980

Abstract:This article analyses Karitāne hospitals as an unrecognised innovation in maternal mental health care in twentieth-century New Zealand. Leading infant welfare organisation, the Plunket Society, established six Karitāne hospitals between 1907 and 1927, which operated until 1980. Historical scholarship has focused predominantly on the infant welfare functions of the hospitals and the nurses who worked there. As a site of interaction with new mothers, the Karitāne hospitals understood and supported mothers identified with mental illness and emotional problems after birth. This article considers the hospitals’ rise and demise through three leaders of the Plunket Society to trace the shifting characterisation of maternal mental illness in New Zealand.