Hôpital des Enfants-Trouvés

The Hôpital des Enfants-Trouvés was an institution of Paris established to take care of abandoned children.

Significant financial donations from high society funded the institution, and the children were entrusted to the care of the sisters.

For reasons unknown, this site was closed between 1689 and 1698, during which boys and sick children of both sexes were sent to the Salpêtrière, while girls were sent to the Pitié.

[1] This building, known as "La Couche," served as a redistribution center for all abandoned children entrusted to the Parisian administration.

It sent unweaned infants to wet nurses and directed older children back to Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine, purchased in 1674.

[2] Conditions in these facilities were cramped, unsanitary, and unsuitable, leading to high mortality among newborns.