PRACTITIONERS

Refuge Midwifery offers grounded, personal, and empowering midwifery care.

We are experts in normal fertility, pregnancy and birth, and our services span the childbearing from conception support and home IUI to prenatal care, home birth, water birth, postpartum care, lactation support and well newborn care. All families and family structures are welcome in our practice. We serve families in Philadelphia, South Jersey, and Southeastern Pennsylvania an hour radius from West Philadelphia.

Ray Rachlin (she/they) is a Licensed Midwife, Certified Professional Midwife, Certified Lactation Counselor, and a member of the Queer and Transgender Midwife Association.

Victoria Dean (she/her) is a Licensed Midwife in New Jersey and New Mexico, Certified Professional Midwife, and Certified Lactation Counselor.

Beth is a fully licensed physician and board certified specialist in Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine. She attended medical school at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed a three year residency in Osteopathic Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, where she performed over 2,000 osteopathic treatments, including treatment of nearly 200 newborns (the ultimate preventative medicine.) She  is a member of the Cranial Academy and has over 200 hours of training in Osteopathy in the Cranial Field.

Dr. Blum is a size-inclusive practitioner and is committed to providing body-positive, gender-affirming care. Before medical school, she trained as a homebirth doula, worked with autistic and neurodiverse young people, and organized around transformative justice and community-based responses to sexual violence. These experiences, combined with her deep dissatisfaction with the profit- and pharmaceutical-driven medical system, inspired her to go into medicine and build a practice founded on the principles of accessibility and patient self-determination. Welcome to that practice.

Dr. Michal Pearl Waldfogel is a naturopathic doctor who brings two decades of experience in education, facilitation and community-building to her work in healthcare.

By leveraging her advanced training in integrative primary care, clinical nutrition, botanical medicine and biofeedback, she works together with patients to create personalized treatment plans that are safe, effective, affordable and fun! In addition to providing one-on-one care, she is passionate about treating isolation and loneliness with community-as-medicine through Group Medical Visits.

Dr. Michal considers mental health to be a major driver of overall well being and enjoys working collaboratively with therapists and prescribing providers to help patients find balance and heal from anxiety, depression, insomnia, alcohol use and more. She practices from a weight-inclusive and trauma-informed framework.

Outside of the office, Dr. Michal is a singer-songwriter and encourages creative expression and humor as part of the healing process.

Anemone is a clinical social worker and psychotherapist licensed in Pennsylvania and Maine who specializes in work with queer and trans people, artists and organizers, and survivors of trauma. Anemone weaves together Gestalt relational therapy with psychodynamic, mindfulness, attachment, and EMDR trauma therapy.

Anemone received her MSS with a focus in Clinical Social Work from Bryn Mawr College School of Social Work and Social Research, and completed two years of post-graduate training at the Gestalt Therapy Institute of Philadelphia. She works in private practice in Philadelphia and is the Dean of Counseling of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine.

She seeks to be gender-affirming, fat-positive, anti-racist, polyamory/non-monogamous/kink competent, and committed to non-pathologizing approaches.  She loves working with clients experiencing shame, despair, isolation and existential dread, and her approach is grounded in a belief that every person is capable and worthy of love and community.

Natalie Berzinis is an electrologist who specializes in thermolysis. She trained with the Electrolysis Specialists of Texas in 2024, completing a 400-hour program in Houston before beginning her practice in September of the same year.

The goal of Natalie’s practice is to help clients feel great in their own skin. Her practice is queer- and trans-affirming, with a focus on helping clients address dysphoria from unwanted facial and body hair growth as well as preparing them for gender confirmation surgery. She also works with clients battling hair growth brought on by perimenopause, PCOS, and other conditions affecting the endocrine system.

Alyssa Hansen is a licensed Clinical Social Worker in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, as well as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). She earned her Master’s in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania and her Certification in Human Lactation from Drexel University.

With over a decade of experience, Alyssa is dedicated to supporting individuals and families in achieving their individualized goals. She is trained in perinatal mental health through Postpartum Support International, and has expertise in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Ecosystemic Family Therapy. Alyssa’s passion lies in helping birthing and lactating individuals navigate the transition to parenthood, while also offering support to partners and family members.

As an inclusive lactation provider, Alyssa works collaboratively with families to create personalized feeding plans that prioritize the unique needs of each parent, child, and family dynamic.

Alyssa provides virtual support to families in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and offers in-office or in-home consultations in the Philadelphia area.

Susan Blum has been a Physical Therapist for over 47 years. She is the creator and lead instructor for the TMR Tots and Teens educational programs.  She was born in Boston Massachusetts and attended the University of Vermont's PT Program. In the early years she worked in a hospital, for the Visiting Nurse Association, a nursing home, and in a women's health clinic but her interest was always to get involved with children. In 1987 she made the transition to work with children and become a school therapist. and in 1998 signed on with the county's Early Intervention Team. In October of 2021 she was awarded the Pediatric Special Interest award of excellence by the PAPTA in appreciation for outstanding contributions to the pediatric physical therapy profession. Susan says "For me this has been a true gift developing the TMR Tots & Teens program."