HOME BIRTH IN THE HOSPITAL - Integrating Natural Childbirth with Modern Medicine

Stacey Marie Kerr, MD

HOME BIRTH IN THE HOSPITAL :: Integrating Natural Childbirth with Modern Medicine

Homebirth in the Hospital

Stacey Marie Kerr, MD Written by a physician, this book embraces the power and possibility of integrative childbirth, in which the compassionate tradition of midwives is combined with the technical expertise of western medicine.

The book presents fifteen powerful testimonies of women who have had an integrative childbirth in a hospital setting, with commentary by the physician who enabled these emotionally satisfying births. These stories show that women can prepare for birth in ways that minimize fear and put technology where it belongs.

Dr. Kerr provides clear guidelines for planning an integrative birth, focusing on the "Five C's": Choice, Communication, Continuity, Confidence, and Control of Protocols. Prospective parents will learn what questions to ask when searching for a provider and how to make their hospital birth the personal and fulfilling experience they desire.

Excerpts from Homebirth in the Hospital:

Stacey Marie Kerr, MD "Normal birth is not a medical procedure. Normal birth is a miraculous and sometimes stressful time for families, but it usually does not require medical intervention. In reality, we find that the more we intervene in an uncomplicated birth, the more we end up taking over for Mother Nature, and all too often when we start down that slippery slope, we end up with Cesarean sections."

Speaks to Expectant Moms:

Stacey Marie Kerr, MD "Every woman has a unique birth story. With the right planning, your experience can include the compassionate providers and a personal empowerment usually associated with a homebirth, even if you are birthing in a hospital."

Speaks to Providers:

"Just as a woman in labor may believe that she is unable to give birth without medical intervention, so too may physicians believe they are unable to assist the birthing process without technology. Many physicians have never seen a natural childbirth, having trained in tertiary-care facilities that medically manage every birth with fetal monitors, Pitocin, and strict hospital protocols.

Without faith in the natural birthing process, it is almost impossible to support integrative childbirth. I encourage all physicians who assist women in having babies to get as much experience as they can with natural birth. Observe and learn from midwives...."

Stacey Marie Kerr, MD

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Latest Reviews

If you’re pregnant or planning to be, read this book! Dr. Kerr’s wise embrace of nature and technology demonstrates that the best births have the right mix of midwifery and medicine.
--Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein, creators of the film The Business of Being Born

Dr. Stacey Kerr's wonderful book of birth stories shows how the midwifery model of care can be provided within a hospital setting. I hope that Homebirth in the Hospital reaches a wide audience of parents-to-be and physicians, as it's just what the midwife ordered! It should be required reading for all obstetric and family practice residents.
--Ina May Gaskin

A must read for the expectant parents who want a natural birth but also want to have the security of a safe and happy delivery. Dr. Kerr is an impassioned advocate of patient empowerment in the birthing process. She has always practiced what she so eloquently believes. Congratulations to Dr. Kerr for writing this very timely and much needed book on natural childbirth in a hospital setting.
--Bob G. Field, M.D., F.A.C.O.G.

"Homebirth in the Hospital is a wonderful breath of fresh air! Dr. Kerr's balanced approach to childbirth is inspiring and very helpful. I highly recommend this book."
--Christiane Northrup, MD, author of Mother-Daughter Wisdom (Bantam, 2005), The Wisdom of Menopause (Bantam, revised and Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (Bantam, revised 2006)

Homebirth in the Hospital is an outstanding book and a must read for all expectant parents as well as the providers who care for them. We are in an era where women are fearful of trusting their bodies to birth normally and...
--Phyllis Klaus, MFT, LCSW Perinatal therapist, reseacher, co-author of The Doula Book, Bonding, Your Amazing newborn, When Survivors Give Birth

A much-needed book showing that women can have real choices in hospital childbirth, and that the key ingredient in their ability to give birth as they wish is the ideology, the wisdom, and the heart of the practitioner...
--Robbie Davis-Floyd PhD, author, Birth as an American Rite of Passage