Eva Bild, MA, AdvCD(DONA), BDT(DONA), LCCE
Founder, Director & Co-Owner of The Mothering Touch Centre; Childbirth Educator, Certified Doula and Breastfeeding Educator
Eva is the Director and Co-Owner of the Mothering Touch Centre. She teaches some of our Childbirth Preparation Classes, Parenting the Newborn, Birth Doula Training Workshops, and Grandparents’ Classes, and facilitates the Baby Groups and Pregnancy Happy Hour.
Eva has been working with childbearing families since 1991. She started her training as a Childbirth Educator with the National Childbirth Trust in Scotland and is now a Lamaze-Certified Childbirth Educator.
Eva has been a doula since 1995, becoming certified by DONA International in 1997. She has accompanied over 140 families through childbirth. It is always an honour to be invited to share this wonderful time in a family’s life. She is very grateful for the privilege of working with new mothers and babies. Eva parle couramment le français et propose ses services d’accompagnante à la naissance à la communauté francophone de Victoria.
Eva completed the Douglas College Breastfeeding Course for Health Professionals in 1996 and has been helping new mothers and their babies learn the mother-baby breastfeeding dance since then. This is one of the most exciting and rewarding parts of Eva’s multi-faceted work life.
Pamela Bethel, CD (DONA), LCCE
Director & Co-Owner, Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator, Breastfeeding Educator, & Birth Doula
Birth and parenthood are profound and transformative; they are passages that connect us to the past, present and future. They are also complex, messy, scary, incredible, joyous, frustrating, hilarious, crazy-making and sleep-depriving. In fact, just insert any adjective and it probably applies to the rich journey of parenthood. Pamela enjoys helping new and expectant parents develop their confidence and their own unique approaches to birth and parenthood.
Pamela lives with her partner Matthew and their son/wildcard Munro. They are all actively engaged, in various capacities, with Victoria’s performing arts scene.
Melissa Harris, CD(DONA), LCCE
Director & Co-Owner , Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator, Breastfeeding Educator, & Birth Doula
After working in the fertility industry and having a doula at her first two births, Melissa knew that helping people and birth would intersect for a long time to come. Melissa has been a DONA certified birth doula and Douglas College trained breastfeeding educator since 2011.
Before becoming a doula, she wanted to become a teacher, but with 2 small children, the timing didn’t seem right. Becoming a childbirth educator at Douglas College has bridged that gap of teaching and birth. Melissa enjoys teaching evidence based birth strategies and hopes that all of the families she meets can gain confidence in their birthing and parenting choices. Since each birth and family is different, she is constantly gaining knowledge from each family that she works with in her classes and as a doula.
Melissa has 3 boys who are all obsessed with hockey and baseball, and she is likely to make several sports references during her classes.
Danielle Ryzuck
Certified Childbirth Educator, Lactation Educator
My interest in pregnancy, birth, and lactation seems to have always been a part of my life. I grew up as a LLL rugrat, absorbing everything birth, babies, and breasts while my mother led meetings, and when it came time for choosing a post secondary path, midwifery lost to anthropology in a coin toss. Later in life, after having three wildly different births (with wildly different babies, who would have thought?), my latent interest became a passion and I searched for a way to make the world of birth congruent with my world of raising little humans. Childbirth Education is my perfect match – I get to be a part of the rich, beautiful, and crazy world of entry into parenthood, but I still get to sleep through the night!
I strive to bring a mix of evidence based information and experience based tips, tricks, and wisdom to class, with the end goal of having participants leave with not only knowing a bit more than when they started, but with less anxiety and fear and a mental bag of practical tools for birth and early parenthood.
I am a Certified Childbirth Educator and Lactation Educator, and have been teaching with Mothering Touch since 2019.
Corinne Bargen
Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator, Lactation Educator, Birth and Postpartum Doula
I grew up loving all things birth and babies. I soaked up the birth stories from my older cousins and babysat any baby or child as soon as the parents’ trusted me. My husband and I have three teenage boys and it was after their births that I knew I wanted to support families as they grew.
One of my main goals in supporting families in my various birth worker roles is helping them access trust in themselves. Teaching evidence based birth strategies and helping inform people’s own intuitions as they become parents is a role I hold with honour. I hope that after people spend time with me in class that they leave with a little more information than they came into class with, a few “tricks” for coping well in labour and the early postpartum days, lower levels of anxiety and a much higher belief and trust in themselves, their bodies, their choices and their intuitions.
Over the last 10+ years I have had the privilege of supporting hundreds of families in our community as a birth & postpartum doula and breastfeeding support and have been teaching at Mothering Touch since 2020.
