Homebirth in the Hospital - by Staceymarie Kerr & Stacey Marie Kerr (Paperback)

About the Book

The personalized and empowering experience of a home birth can also occur in a hospital setting. This book presents fifteen powerful testimonies about this kind of emotionally satisfying birth. The stories show that expectant mothers can minimize fear and put technology where it belongs.Dr. Kerr focuses 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 fulfilling experience they desire.

Book Synopsis

The personalized and empowering experience of a home birth can also occur in a hospital setting. This book presents fifteen powerful testimonies about this kind of emotionally satisfying birth. The stories show that expectant mothers can minimize fear and put technology where it belongs.Dr. Kerr focuses 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 fulfilling experience they desire.

Review Quotes

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. In this case, that practitioner is Stacey Kerr MD, who, like the best of midwives, is there to guard, guide, and inspire the women she attends to help them achieve their desires. A must-read for any woman interested in giving birth normally in the hospital setting--usually very difficult to achieve, but entirely doable, as this book beautifully demonstrates, when the doctor is truly on and by your side.
--Robbie Davis-Floyd PhD, author, Birth as an American Rite of Passage

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., former Director of High Risk Obstetrics, Sutter Medical Center, Santa Rosa, CA

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, author of Spiritual Midwifery

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 Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom

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. Dr. Kerr has truly integrated concerns for safety and the use of appropriate technology of the medical model with the skills and comprehensive wisdom of the midwifery model, thereby using medical interventions only when truly necessary. Dr. Kerr clearly illustrates with detailed examples how women and their clinicians can work through the challenges that are unique to each woman's individual birth. Caregivers and women will benefit by seeing how empowering and healthy normal and natural childbirth can be when using skillful hands-on maneuvers, instilling confidence and facilitating the woman's own ability to understand what her body can do, the choices she has, and the confidence to communicate her needs. This book is a significant contribution to modern and normal childbirth.
--Phyllis Klaus, MFT, LCSW co-author of The Doula Book

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

Women who want a natural childbirth often feel compelled to choose between a home birth and a hospital birth. They want the warmth and comfort of home, but they also desire the security of the medical support available in the hospital. Kerr, a family physician who provides family-centered childbirths, tells families how they can have the best of both worlds. She had two children, one in a birthing center and one at home, and trained with Ina May Gaskin at The Farm before going to medical school at the University of California, Davis. Her book offers clear guidelines for integrative childbirth, emphasizing the "Five C's" choice, communication, continuity, confidence, and control. Parents learn how to choose a health-care provider and hospital that will partner with them for a fulfilling birth experience. Physicians learn how to work with patients and their families to make sure this happens. The stories of 15 families who have had "homebirth in the hospital" illustrate that it does work. This is an excellent book for public, health sciences, and consumer health libraries.
--Library Journal

About the Author

Stacey Marie Kerr, MD, is a family physician who has provided family-centered childbirth experiences for her patients for over fifteen years. In 1989, at the age of 39, she received her MD from the University of California, Davis, Medical School. She completed her residency and earned her Board Certification in Family Medicine in 1992, probably the first grandmother to graduate from the Santa Rosa UCSF residency program. Dr. Kerr writes about current issues in medical practice and has published extensively in medical journals, including JAMA, California Family Physician, and Sonoma Medicine. She writes a monthly health column for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. She currently lives in Santa Rosa, California.