Melanie V. Chevarie, LM, CPM, MEPH
Midwife, Facilitator, Mentor
I am a midwife, educator, and lifelong activist, weaving together the sacred wisdom of ancestral birth knowledge with the discernment of modern evidence-based medicine.
For over two decades, I have walked alongside women as a primary care midwife, a teacher of thousands, and a guardian of physiological birth. I believe that true transformation unfolds when knowledge is reclaimed, embodied, and collectively held. I have taught obstetrical skills and preventative medicine to nurses, doctors, midwives, traditional birth attendants, and students across the world. My academic journey includes faculty positions at The University of British Columbia and The Royal College of Gynecology and Obstetrics, alongside my work in training doulas through my online school École Quantik Doula, which has become the largest full-spectrum doula school for the French-speaking world.
As a fierce advocate for sovereignty in birth, I have dedicated my life to shifting paradigms, returning birth to women and birthkeepers, and dismantling systems that deny autonomy and dignity to women and their families.
Holding a Master’s in Evidence-Based Teaching for Health Professionals from Johns Hopkins University, my capstone project centered on developing a Trauma-Informed Care curriculum for birth workers, ensuring that those who serve the birthing field understand the deep imprints of trauma and the necessity of radical change in birth care.
Witnessing the wounds left by medicalized birth and systemic disempowerment, I expanded my scope of healing, completing an Advanced Degree in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy at Naropa University and becoming a MAPS/Lykos Educated Therapist specializing in complex trauma. Today, I serve as a senior therapist in clinical research at the University of New Mexico, exploring the effects of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (PAT) on postpartum depression and trauma, and I teach at Naropa University in their psychedelic-assisted therapy program.
While I navigate both the medical and academic worlds, my heart remains in the hands of the women reclaiming their power.
Birth is a sacred act of sovereignty. Our bodies know. Our wisdom is ancient. Knowledge is liberation.
Origin of the name Mama Loup
In Kenya, where I gave birth, there is a tradition to call people by the name of their first born. For example, If your first born is named Sophie, you are called Mama Sophie or Papa Sophie for the rest of your life, even if you have more children. I birthed my daughter in Kenya, next to a national park and where the hyenas were faintly laughing in the distance between my labor sounds, as if they were responding to my moans. I gave her the middle name of Loup—which means wolf, in French, my native language—and in the spirit of this tradition, I named this platform Mama Loup.
