"Homebirth in the Hospital" by Stacey Marie Kerr

Okay, so I've got a confession: I haven't been posting all of the nonfiction books read so far in 2010. But that is mostly because I don't read all of a nonfiction book; I will skim to the parts that I find interesting.

And truth be told, that's what I did with this fabulous book. The MD who wrote this book shares my exact feelings for what I want out of a pregnancy and birth. I wish all ob/gyns read it. It's very interesting. She reconciles the ideas of being secure in a hospital but having low levels of medical intervention.

The book is a collection of birth stories where the patient had a "homebirth", aka a noninvasive, mother centered birth experience, but in the hospital. I skipped the normal birth stories, and read only the ones where there were serious complications. I'm not sure why, probably there are lots of reasons. For one, I don't want to get too comfortable with homebirths, because even though they are the right thing for soooooooo many, and there are studies shown about how there are less complications and deaths than hospital births for women in low risk pregnancies, I have to remember people like my sister in law, who had low risk pregnancies and then crazy scary complications, where the baby could have died without medical intervention available at the NICU in the hospital.

I really liked this book. Dr. Kerr is very intelligent, and I enjoyed reading what she said. I also agreed with lots of what she said, if not some of her ideas about religion and spirituality; and I also thought some of the things she did when she was younger were completely insane (e.g. living on a commune) but hey she grew up in the '60's.

If you are pregnant, I would recommend reading this for sure.