Mary Sommers, CPM, MPS, IBCLC

Mary is the Director of Birth Center Operations and Perinatal Education at PCC Community Wellness, a Federally Qualified Health Center and Academic Affairs Director of the Midwest Maternal Child Institute. She is a Certified Professional Midwife, a Internationally board certified lactation consultant and holds a Master’s degree in Public Service from DePaul University.  She is a childbirth educator teaching both at PCC and at Birthways in Chicago. Mary has many years of experience and the wisdom that comes from witnessing more than 1,800 deliveries over the past 35 years.

Early in her career, she co-founded Chicago Community Midwives, a not-for-profit homebirth service. Mary has since worked as a midwife, doula, and lactation consultant for various private practices in the Chicago area, Mary was a World Health Organization fellow, studying maternal health and breastfeeding programs in Netherlands and England. She has worked with midwives from Malawi and Grand Valley State to create a midwifery guidebook and APP, and was an advisory board member of CASA professional midwifery program in San Miguel de Allende, GTO, Mexico. Mary has worked for more than thirty years in community health as an administrator and director of maternal child health programs and has supervised more than 40 midwifery students and trained more than 100 doulas in her various administrative roles.

She is the author of More Than a Midwife: Stories of Grace, Glory, and Motherhood and The Doula Handbook. She is featured in the book, Bright Lights of the Second City: 50 Prominent Chicagoans on Living with Passion and Purpose by Betsy Storm. She is a Jung Studies student at the Jung Institute in Chicago. She is a dream practitioner and dabbles in the tarot and is fascinated by all things mystical. She is currently planning a Compassionate Center for Chicago.