Click to enter the gallery. The impersonality of hospital-based birth, together with increasing medical intervention and the growing isolation of new mothers, has led to the development of doula service, a new community role with deep roots in traditional practice. "Doula" is a Greek word denoting a woman’s servant, or someone who acts in service of another person. Today the term describes a person who is trained to offer prenatal and labor support, as well as emotional and practical assistance through the early postpartum weeks at home. The Doula Service of University Hospital and Medical Center in Stony Brook, New York, trains Long Island women to be doulas, and provides the option of doula support to expectant mothers regardless of their ability to pay. In tandem with Suffolk County’s first hospital midwifery practice, a small group of women, led by an inspired trio of obstetrician, nurse-midwife, and doula instructor, serve as doulas for mothers of all ages and backgrounds. While the work of doulas during childbirth largely consists of encouraging words, wiped brows, massages, hand-holding, and help with walking and position changes, the presence of a doula in the delivery room results in remarkably lowered rates of cesarean sections and use of anesthesia, particularly epidurals. Their postpartum service includes breastfeeding advice, companionship and conversation, and such necessary tasks as babysitting older siblings, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and newborn care. A doula intends never to supersede the relationship between mother and child, nor the role of the father, family, and friends, but rather to help create a supportive environment for those relationships to flourish in the presence of new life.