The ROOT is a space for community midwifery and the wisdoms stirred when women gather. It was founded in 2015 by four San Francisco midwives as a place to belong, cultivate community and galvanize acts of human self care. It is here that Kelly and Kara see how our homebirth practices grow and deepen our community. Our mission is to normalize, re-wild, and initiate the blueprint of midwifery as touchstone to our collective power and connection.
Kara is a homebirth midwife with a grounded midwifery practice full of new and repeat families. Her path into midwifery began in her first pregnancy with an inherited copy of Spiritual Midwifery. It awoke in her a knowing that when we change the way we see birth, we change the way we birth. Blending practicality and passion, midwifery allows for her care to be curated to the individual needs of each person, including holistic and clinical realms of care. She loves seeing babies grow into children, people growing into families, women and birthing people grow more into themselves.
Kara has two kids who are now young adults. She is also a potter and sells a small selection of hand thrown pottery at the Root.
For Kelly, midwifery is an always evolving expression of the work of life—to heal relationships with our bodies, with nature, and our lineages; to remember wisdoms coded in our cycles, our blood and births; to restore connection with ancient medicine, our voice, and our place in community. She is most compelled by the birth of the woman—the pieces of that get woke and the healing that occurs within the vast container of midwifery. Kelly offers full spectrum midwifery care for body + spirit, for all stages + ages, including: fertility consults, intrauterine inseminations, homebirth, postpartum integration, holistic well woman care.
Root Brews are specific blends of herbal medicine used to cultivate relationship and guide in remembering our primal nature + knowing. Utilizing herbs as self-keeping, healing, ritual, vehicle for creation fosters a deep sense of belonging, to ourselves, the community + the earth. All of the blends are crafted in small batches, working with the cycles of the moon, to optimize potency and energy. We add new blends seasonally and as inspiration strikes. The brews are distinct + available to soothe, inspire, balance, boost immunity, aid integration, awaken blood knowing, spirit, vitality. Consult with your midwife for tinctures, tonics, and oils.
Alicia Roberts (formerly Alicia Willoughby) specializes in working with women during pregnancy, postpartum and beyond the childbearing years. Her treatment approach is a combination of orthopedic skills and pelvic floor training to address the whole body of a mother. Her passion of working with mothers comes not only from personal experiences but also from working with so many women who have come over the years with various orthopedic discomforts and injuries which very likely could have been prevented if they had received postpartum rehabilitation early in their motherhood journey. She wants to improve postpartum care – one mommy at a time!
Integrative psychiatry is mental health care that offers a broader lens of healing beyond just medication and psychotherapy. Dr. Rabkin’s practice style is interdisciplinary and intersectional, acknowledging that there are many forms of healing. She weaves together psychopharmocology, psychodynamic therapy, yoga psychology, integrative therapies, and creative expression in order to create unique treatment plans for each patient. Research increasingly shows what humans have always intuited: that community, nature, food, art, and plants are powerful medicine. Integrative care emphasizes that our mind and body are not just connected but part of a larger whole that needs tending. In doing so, we acknowledge that mental health care needs to be aligned with your values and personally meaningful to be effective.
Rooted in San Francisco, Kat specializes in holistic psychotherapy to empower women through various life transitions, including anxiety management, navigating “stuckness” and integrating the profound changes of parenthood. With over a decade of experience, she has honed her unique approach, blending evidence-based practices with clinical insight and intuitive wisdom all in service of guiding clients back to the innate knowledge held in their bodies. Additionally, she has studied and trained in yoga, meditation, birth-work, reiki, Buddhism, and herbalism, all of which inform the way she views her work: as a science, but also an art, with a little bit of mysticism sprinkled in.
Lindsey’s passion is to support people to Heal from Within so they can know themselves on the deepest levels. She uses Depth Hypnosis, Shamanic Counseling, Energy Medicine, and Craniosacral therapy to guide people back to themselves by supporting the healing of physical injuries & illness, trauma, anxiety, fear, depression and self-doubt.
Lindsey earned a Master of Public Health in Maternal and Child Health in 2005 and moved back to the Bay Area to work in the field of women's health. While working in philanthropy, she volunteered as a birth doula and earned her certification in vinyasa yoga. It was when she was pregnant with her first child in 2009 that she found Depth Hypnosis and since then she has become a Depth Hypnosis Practitioner, Applied Shamanic Counselor, Buddhist Psychology, and a certified massage therapist specializing in craniosacral therapy.
Demerie has been a Prenatal Massage Specialist since 2012. She is a Mama of three. She always had a natural passion for Mamahood and all it entails. She draws from her personal experience and inquisitiveness for anything and everything woman and Mamahood related and uses it in her practice. She firmly believes that there is healing through the power of therapeutic touch. Demerie is committed and honored to be of service to all her clients. She also offers Belly Facials and Belly Casting services.
++ If you would like to rent space at the ROOT please contact us at therootmidwives@gmail.com. Reduced fees available for POC practitioners.
kara@mothercraftmidwifery.com kellymurphy@womenborn.com
THE ROOT MIDWIVES | 1300 SANCHEZ STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94131
