Meet Dr. Raya Williams
Certified Midwife & Prenatal Chiropractor
A Midwife Rooted in Generational Healing & Community Wisdom
Peace & Gratitude — I’m Dr. Raya Williams, a Certified Professional Midwife, and Prenatal and Pediatric Chiropractor. Since 2018, I’ve supported individuals and families through seasons of profound transformation as a Restorative Yoga Teacher and Holistic Wellness Facilitator—always with presence, intention, and care.
My work is grounded in a commitment to generational health, community wellness, and integrated perinatal care. In addition to midwifery, I support families as a Certified Lactation Counselor, Perinatal Nutrition Educator, Herbalist, Reiki Master, and Generational Healer.
Rooted in the interconnected layers of physical, emotional, spiritual, and ancestral well-being, these modalities reflect my belief that healing must center the whole person while also tending to the collective body we belong to.
My chiropractic education at Palmer College in Davenport, Iowa established the foundation for my understanding of nervous system-centered care in the perinatal season.
This training shapes my practice as a prenatal and pediatric chiropractor and enhances my ability to support alignment, regulation, and resilience for growing families from preconception through birth and beyond.
Care Grounded in Identity & Justice
As a Black midwife serving Chicagoland, my work is informed by ancestral wisdom and the ongoing movement for birth justice. I am committed to offering culturally competent prenatal care that honors the lived experiences of Black families and prioritizes safety, trust, and autonomy.
Midwifery Origin Story
As I guided yoga classes for expectant parents, I began to feel a growing urgency—I knew I needed to expand my ability to truly support the pregnant students showing up in front of me. That realization led me to enroll in a comprehensive Prenatal Yoga Training through Amala School of Yoga in Chicago, Illinois.
One day during our training, Nicole Miles—a powerful Black doula, midwife, and IBCLC—walked into the room and shared her work with a local birth justice organization. Her stories, the ones she carried from the families she served, revealed a painful truth: too many Black women were giving birth in hospital settings where they felt unseen, unheard, and unsupported.
That moment planted a seed. Over the next year, I immersed myself in the study of pregnancy and birth, dedicating my time outside of work to learning everything I could. I began supporting families as a birth and postpartum doula, walking alongside them through their most profound and transformative moments. Families spoke of home birth as a reclamation—of power, safety, love, and autonomy. Their stories reflected a vision of care that honored every part of who they were. I knew I wanted to be part of that kind of care.
Then one day, while listening to an episode of Homecoming Podcast—hosted by Chae Pounds and Isis A. Rose—I heard a conversation that shifted everything. I learned about the many paths to becoming a community midwife and felt something click. Within weeks, I began attending home births as a student midwife, stepping into a tradition that felt like home itself.
Over the course of three and a half years as a student midwife, I had the honor of apprenticing under three deeply experienced Certified Professional Midwives. My clinical training followed the standards set by the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM) through the Portfolio Evaluation Process, combining hands-on, community-based learning with rigorous academic study.
I have completed all the requirements to earn the credential of Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) through NARM, as well as the Midwifery Bridge Certificate, reflecting a strong foundation in both evidence-informed care and community-rooted midwifery practice.
Throughout my journey as a birth professional, I’ve supported families planning to give birth in a wide range of settings—hospitals, birth centers, and home. While my heart is most at home in community-based midwifery, my work is always centered on honoring choice and supporting what feels safest and most aligned for each family. I also teach perinatal nutrition, lactation education, and CPR—offering families the tools, knowledge, and confidence to navigate this sacred season with clarity and care.
“In addition to being from the community and understanding not only linguistically and culturally what women need, but midwives of color also protect women in a system that is hostile to them.” Pamela Loftman CNM
Nervous System Care for the Perinatal Season
Prenatal & Pediatric Chiropractic Care
My path to becoming a prenatal & pediatric chiropractor began during my final year as a student midwife, when I traveled to Rock Island, Illinois to complete my clinical training. Just across the river, I found myself near the birthplace of chiropractic—Palmer College. At the time, I had no idea that this would become the next step in my calling.
It was my preceptor, Sarah Moore, LCPM, who first introduced me to the power of chiropractic care. I had never received an adjustment before, but she urged me to visit Palmer and see what it was all about. I went, curious and open-hearted, and left with a quiet knowing: this was something I was meant to do.
I enrolled at Palmer College of Chiropractic with little more than faith and a deep commitment to serving families. Over the past three and a half years, I’ve come to understand chiropractic care not just as a healing art, but as a vital way to support growing families—especially during pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and early childhood.
It’s a practice rooted in the nervous system, and in honoring the innate intelligence of the body. Prenatal chiropractic care has become so much more to me than a clinical skill—it’s a deeply intuitive way of supporting whole families, beginning even before birth.
In the perinatal season, gentle, prenatal chiropractic care helps pregnant bodies adapt with greater ease, creates space for babies to settle into optimal positions, and cultivates calm, connected transitions into life outside the womb.
When midwifery and prenatal chiropractic care come together, a powerful synergy unfolds—one that respects the body’s innate wisdom, supports physiological birth, and nurtures early regulation and development. This integrative model of care is more than what I do—it’s what I wholeheartedly believe every family deserves.
This is the heart behind every adjustment I give, and the vision I carry into every space I enter.