What's A "Lying-In-Hospital"?

Factual Questions
1

I was watching an episode of All In The Family and Archie is trying to sit next to Stephanie but there is a stranger between them. So he leans over the stranger and says “You know you never should’ve escaped from that lying-in-hospital, with that raging scarlet fever.” Of course this makes the stranger move, so that Archie can sit next to Stephanie.

Now I always thought a lying-in-hospital was a maternity hospital, is this not so?

BTW I do realize that TV sitcoms are hardly the end word of what is what, but it got me wondering when I heard it.

2

*“What’s A “Lying-In-Hospital”?” *

A hospital or a special ward in one where expectant mothers spent a period of a few weeks of bed-rest prior to delivery. The practice of pre-birth bed rest has largely been abandoned but the appelation still is used in reference to the maternity wards or hospitals reserved for delivery and post natal care.