Dana Louise Raphael (January 5, 1926 – February 2, 2016) was an American medical anthropologist. She was a strong advocate of breastfeeding and promoted the movement to recruit non-medical care-givers to assist mothers during and after childbirth. She called such care-givers " doulas." [1] The term " doula" (pronounced do͞olə; from Ancient Greek δούλη, a female slave) was popularized in her 1973 book "The Tender Gift: Breastfeeding." [2]
Dana Louise Raphael was born in New Britain, Connecticut, on January 5, 1926, the daughter of Louis Raphael, who owned a department store chain, and the former Naomi Kaplan. [1]
Raphael received her bachelor's degree and Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University in New York City. [1] Having avoided a conventional wedding and refused to take her husband's name (unusual in the 1950s), she rejected the common practise of bottle-feeding, but had difficulty breastfeeding her first-born son. [3] She learned the word "doula" from a woman in Greece who told her that it fitted the role that Raphael was describing to her of a woman who helps a nursing mother by taking on other work in the home; Raphael then used the term in her 1966 dissertation on cross-cultural practices of breast-feeding [3] before making the term more public in a magazine article in 1969. [1] She gave it more widespread currency in "The Tender Gift: Breastfeeding" in 1976. [2]
In 1975, Dana Raphael, together with Margaret Mead, founded The Human Lactation Center, an institute devoted to researching patterns of lactation worldwide. [4] Dana Raphael was married to Howard Boone Jacobson, with whom she had three children. [4]
Dana Raphael died of complications arising from congestive heart failure on 2 February 2016 at her home in Fairfield, Connecticut. [1]
Dana Louise Raphael (January 5, 1926 – February 2, 2016) was an American medical anthropologist. She was a strong advocate of breastfeeding and promoted the movement to recruit non-medical care-givers to assist mothers during and after childbirth. She called such care-givers " doulas." [1] The term " doula" (pronounced do͞olə; from Ancient Greek δούλη, a female slave) was popularized in her 1973 book "The Tender Gift: Breastfeeding." [2]
Dana Louise Raphael was born in New Britain, Connecticut, on January 5, 1926, the daughter of Louis Raphael, who owned a department store chain, and the former Naomi Kaplan. [1]
Raphael received her bachelor's degree and Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University in New York City. [1] Having avoided a conventional wedding and refused to take her husband's name (unusual in the 1950s), she rejected the common practise of bottle-feeding, but had difficulty breastfeeding her first-born son. [3] She learned the word "doula" from a woman in Greece who told her that it fitted the role that Raphael was describing to her of a woman who helps a nursing mother by taking on other work in the home; Raphael then used the term in her 1966 dissertation on cross-cultural practices of breast-feeding [3] before making the term more public in a magazine article in 1969. [1] She gave it more widespread currency in "The Tender Gift: Breastfeeding" in 1976. [2]
In 1975, Dana Raphael, together with Margaret Mead, founded The Human Lactation Center, an institute devoted to researching patterns of lactation worldwide. [4] Dana Raphael was married to Howard Boone Jacobson, with whom she had three children. [4]
Dana Raphael died of complications arising from congestive heart failure on 2 February 2016 at her home in Fairfield, Connecticut. [1]