ZEPHYR
®
Zephyr, CPBT, RCST , PE
they/them/their
Since 2012, Zephyr has been supporting infants in the
NICU to integrate trauma, settle, and sleep. Zephyr has
worked with infants ranging in age from hours old to six months old,
and born as early as 24 weeks gestational age (LMP) through full-term.
Medical conditions have included awaiting mother’s recovery from
birth, fever at birth, reflux, Down’s syndrome, Patau syndrome,
prematurity—need for lung and brain development and weight
gain, birth during seizures from eclampsia, esophageal atresia,
difficulty latching or sucking, inability to keep food in as with
pyloric stenosis, gastroschisis, born without heartbeat, exposure
to drugs in utero, in withdrawal from drugs, cleft palate, injury
from vacuum birth, and hydrocephaly.
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Zephyr is familiar with medical interventions and works
with infants while on a ventilator, with a peripherally-inserted central
catheter (PICC line) or intravenous (IV) line, with an ostomy bag, on
bubble continuous positive airway pressure (BCPAP), with a nasogastric
(NG) tube, gastric (G) tube, orogastric (OG) tube, or jejunostomy (J) tube;
while isolated in an incubator, and in withdrawal, including those receiving
medication-assisted-treatment using methadone and morphine protocols.
​​​​Zephyr has experience providing newborn palliative care.
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Zephyr is currently writing the book, Trauma Integration in the Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit, promoting collaboration between practitioners of allopathic
medicine and energetic healing arts. The once-in-a-lifetime circumstance of the
neonate of continuing, outside the womb, to develop the physiology, neurology,
and capacity for human connection that will serve as the foundation for their life,
necessitates the timely provision of energetic support. Mutual support
and cooperation across paradigms is key to providing the
highest quality of care in service to the whole person,
the neonate or infant, whose NICU experience will play a
singular, formative role across the trajectory of their life.
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Zephyr is a certified graduate of Ray Castellino’s Prenatal and Birth Therapy
Foundation Training, a certified graduate of Anna and John Chitty’s Biodynamic
Craniosacral Therapy Training, and has completed Dr. Susie Ludington's
National Intensive Kangaroo Care Certification Course.
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The arc of Zephyr's journey has been graced by the extraordinary gifts of
Douglas Daher, Martin Weiner, Marion Woodman, Victoria Sloan, Ray Castellino,
and Harvey Ruderian. Over the past twenty-three years, Zephyr has studied under
Raymond Castellino, Mary Jackson, Tara Blasco, John Chitty, Anna Chitty,
Mary Louise Muller, Debra Bochinski, Hugh Milne, Scott Zamurut, Dr. Susie Ludington,
Marion Woodman, Michael Meade, and Robert Bly. The breadth of Zephyr’s
perspective manifests in the wonder and gratitude they feel for the beauty
of each soul met in this profound work.
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Zephyr holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering and
construction management from Stanford University. They have lived five years in Africa—
Libya, Ghana, and Tanzania—and worked thirty-five years in construction, public works,
development, and relief work. Under the nom de plume, Melissa Fischer, Zephyr has
published a work of literary fiction, The Advocacy, an environmental justice
novel based on their Peace Corps service in Ghana,