Elsa Waldman, CNM

Calling to midwifery:  my incredible mother Jeanne is a midwife and had the magical experience of being raised in community with many midwives who later became my midwives and my teachers and mentors and colleagues.

Midwifery is the perfect blend of science and art and action and spirituality and truly I have always been very fascinated by bodies and blood and gore!

It is a complete honor to accompany humans through the intense and vulnerable experience of pregnancy and birth and all the spaces in between and I feel deeply grateful that I get to do this work.  I learn so much from my clients.

When not at work I am an amateur mushroom forager and I love to spend time learning about plants and crafting medicinal food and tinctures.  I love swimming in all bodies of water and have a special connection to Maine where I swam many summers in glacial lakes. I have 2 delightful (and wild!) children who never cease to amaze and ground and teach me.  My first taught me about letting go of plans (and cesareans!) and my second taught me about bravery (and VBACs!).  I live in a rambling West Philadelphia home with my children and partner Pedro.

The model of care at Lifecycle is very unique and the staff drawn to work here are quite exceptional folks who I look forward to learning from and teaming up with to provide excellent care.

First nursing jobs:  RN at GPHA’s southeast health center (where Julie Cristol was the director of OB!) and RN at phila women’s center in abortion care.

Prior midwife jobs:

-4 years at a community hospital in Cambridge (Mount Auburn Hospital) that was a hub for physiologic hospital birth and reproductive care.  At this first midwifery job I learned the real art of midwifery from many wise older midwives and was also able to dive into my public health interests working with an incredibly diverse populations, starting a Spanish language centering group and working at several FQHCs.

-Returning to Philadelphia in 2014 I joined the Hahnemann Midwifery practice, training and mentoring OBGYN residents; as well as working across the city in the Health Centers were central parts of my job.  When Hahnemann was forced to close in 2019,  I migrated with my practice over to Jefferson, where I continued to train and mentor OBGYN and family medicine residents as well as staff the city health centers.

Other prof/vol things:

-I have done several spinning babies trainings and am a “spinning babies aware practitioner” and love to work on pregnant people’s fascia and ligaments to get babies aligned!

-I have lived and volunteered in Spain, Mexico, Nicaragua and Honduras- working alongside community health workers and traditional midwives.

-I am bilingual and have a deep love and respect for the Spanish Language and the Latinx community in Philadelphia.