About Mélanie.
I have been a primary care midwife with a specialization in global health and human rights for most of my adult life. Parallel to my medical practice, I have been an educator to thousands as I believe the most immediate and meaningful change happens when we collectively hold the knowledge.
During my 20-plus years of teaching experience, I have taught obstetrical skills and preventative medicine to nurses, doctors, midwives, traditional birth attendants, and students. I have been faculty at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver and with The Royal College of Gynecology and Obstetric. I have owned yoga studios and taught yoga teacher trainings, and meditation retreats. As co-founder of École Quantik Doula, I have trained hundreds of doulas around the world as our full-spectrum doula school quickly became the largest doula school for the French-speaking community. As a lifelong activist, I have fought child sexual abuse, worked in harm-reduction in the context of gender and sexual-based violence, and promoted access to respectful care for the LGBTQ+ community.
Concurrently, I am a 2nd year Masters Candidate in Evidence-Based Teaching for Health Professionals at Johns Hopkins University. Being a clinician in reproductive health, I have received the stories of trauma from thousands of people, which has motivated me to work towards developing a Trauma-Informed Care curriculum to be implemented in obstetrical programs for my Capstone project. These efforts towards prevention are essential, as is accessible therapy for those who have already been injured. In response to that need, I graduated in 2023 with an Advanced Degree in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy at Naropa University and also had the distinguished opportunity to become MAPS / Lykos Educated Therapist.
While I comfortably navigate the academic and medical worlds, my passion is to merge contemporary and ancestral knowledge.
Our Commitments
Affirming Diversity
Mama Loup supports, celebrates and affirms diversity in all forms. At times we will speak about “women’s bodies” to acknowledge the political & historical need to advocate for cis-men to no longer be the standard upon which we based our understanding of cis-women’s health. However, we also recognize that there are people across the gender spectrum for whom the term “women’s bodies” is exclusionary and who experience menstruation, pregnancy, and other seasons of reproductive health without identifying as a woman.
Reparations
Mama Loup acknowledges the Pueblo people as the rightful stewards of the land on which we live and work: O’gha Po'oge now named Santa Fe. Thank you for having protected the land, the water, the medicinal plants, the seeds, and the animals. Your work, prayers, and ceremonies have blessed and continue to bless this land of enchantment.
For these reasons and in response to the systematic discrimination, all Mama Loup courses are free of charge for Indigenous, First Nation, Inuit and Native People.
Giving Back Knowledge
For generations, knowledge has been withheld by a narrow and privileged group of people. Mama Loup strives to democratize the flow of knowledge and we reclaim intuition, ancestral tradition, relationship with nature, with our body, and our lineage as integral parts of knowledge building and resources.
For these reasons, our courses provide not only evidence-based knowledge, but also functional and herbal medicine, holistic approaches, and rites and rituals practices within all our Journeys.
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.
We want to dedicate this work to the next generation of people who menstruate.