This postcard, from the early 20th century, shows a group of women and children, most likely belonging to the Mapuche people. The Mapuche occupied a large area in the cone of South America, the territory of the current nations of Chile and Argentina. Indigenous American tribes were popular subjects for postcards around the turn of the 20th century, and a large subgroup of postcards portrayed babies in cradleboards—called "papooses."

One of the women is holding a cradleboard upright in front of her, and another is holding a young girl by the hand. The use of cradleboards was widespread among indigenous American ethnic and tribal groups. With variations in the shape of the board, the use of fabrics and lacings to bind the child onto the board, and the arrangement of the protective hoods, cradleboards display remarkable uniformity across North and South America. One postcard legend described this variation on the worldwide practice of swaddling infants: "the Cradle of the Indian children consists of a board made of slats, with hood of same material or wicker. the youngster being bound with bands there to uncomfortable in appearance yet the children seem fat and happy. they are usually carried on their mothers back wrapped in a bright shawl.[sic]"

The postcards—some with black-and-white or color-retouched photographs, and others as color lithographs—often featured captions intended to be humorous, such as "An Embryonic Warrior" or "Snug as a Bug in a Rug." One postcard of a Navaho papoose from the popular publisher Fred Harvey contained a printed legend commenting on indigenous American childrearing practices: "The Navaho child is seldom punished for the simple reason that he seldom requires it. There appears to be a bond of sympathy and love between parent and child which is very strong during the minority of the child, but strange to say the children do not always love and protect their parents when the latter become old and infirm."

These images of swaddled infants come from a series of 10 glazed terra cotta bas-reliefs known as the "bambini." Andrea della Robbia sculpted them between 1463 and 1466 to adorn the Ospedale degli Innocenti, or Foundling Hospital, in Florence, Italy. The images show a sequence of childhood stages, from a tightly swaddled newborn to a child liberated from bindings that gradually loosen and fall aside. The images reflect the practice of confining infants’ bodies in tightly wound strips of cloth, which can be found on images of infants in many world regions and cultures.

The Silk Guild of Florence, responsible for foundling care in Florence starting in 1294, commissioned architect Filippo Brunelleschi to build a sanctuary for foundlings in 1419. The building featured a door—la routa—with a rotating stone platform where individuals could anonymously leave infants for charitable foster care until 1875. The Ospedale degli Innocenti as an institution provided continuous care for infants and children for more than five centuries. The image of the liberated child in the 2nd roundel from the left has been used as the official insignia of the American Association of Pediatrics since 1955.

The earthenware mold for casting a figurine of an infant was found in Tangyangu China, and is likely dated to between 960 and 1279 CE, during the Song dynasty. The mold measures 3.2 inches long, and belongs to a collection of molds depicting men, women, and animals. The molds were likely used to make tomb figurines that were placed with the dead for burial, a ritual practice that was becoming less widespread by the Song dynasty. The mold for an infant figurine shows the widespread practice of swaddling, or tightly binding newborn infants with strips of cloth. In cultures from western to eastern Asia, it was believed that the practice was necessary, and helped form the child's body by preventing too much movement. The practice of swaddling has been abandoned in modern times, but a recent pediatric article noted that it may help newborns to sleep, calm their heartbeat, and prevent sudden infant death.