Dana Raphael, Proponent of Breast-Feeding and Use of Doulas, Dies at 90

"Other mothers, she found, were going through the same thing. Many lacked the family support systems that previous generations had — the grandmothers and aunts who could advise and assist — largely owing to changing social patterns.

“When grandmother walked out of the nursery and took up painting and golf, out with her went the whole cultural tradition of pampering mother along with baby,” Dr. Raphael wrote in 1970 in an article in The New York Times Magazine. “No one is there to tell her how to hold the nursing infant, how long to keep him suckling or how to care for uncomfortably full breasts or irritated nipples.”

To fill that need, Dr. Raphael advocated the use of female attendants, or doulas, to guide mothers during and after childbirth. She was credited with coining the term — from the Greek word for a female servant — in an article she wrote in 1969."