A senior clinician reported a birthkeeper to police on the same day one of her clients died after a home birth. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
Wellness influencer Stacey Warnecke, 30, died on 29 September at Frankston hospital in Melbourne. She had paid Emily Lal $6,000 to support her in a freebirth at home without clinically trained staff. Lal described herself as a "birthkeeper." Birthkeepers have no medical training and operate outside the medical system.
On Tuesday, Lal told the inquest her role was not medical nor to keep Warnecke safe. She acted primarily as a friend and said it was not her role to call an ambulance unless specifically asked by the mother.
Warnecke gave birth to her son shortly after 3am, and to the placenta about 20-25 minutes later, when she began bleeding. She became short of breath and panicked; Lal told her she might be having a panic attack. In fact, she had a massive postpartum haemorrhage, which Frankston hospital's director of obstetrics and gynaecology, Nisha Khot, said was treatable and very rare for women to die from when giving birth in hospital or with a midwife at home.
After struggling to breathe, Warnecke told Lal "I'm bleeding," but Lal looked between her legs and said she wasn't bleeding anymore. Khot explained that internal bleeding can occur after a haemorrhage and visible blood is just one sign clinicians are trained to look for.
Executive director of medical services at Bayside Health Peninsula, associate professor Shyaman Menon, described efforts to save Warnecke. By the time she arrived at hospital about two hours after birth, her heart was struggling and she had multiple cardiac arrests. Lal asked Warnecke three times if she wanted an ambulance, but only called after the third "yes."
Menon said clinical staff were concerned by Lal's language, which suggested she may have been responsible for treatment or care. "The feeling was the language used was probably more than what a general public member would actually understand," he said.
Concerns raised at a review meeting hours after Warnecke's death prompted Menon to go to Frankston police station that same day to make a statement, something he had not done before. "The basis of why I went to the police on behalf of Bayside Health Peninsula [was] to make a report from a public health and safety perspective," he said.
Lal declined to give a statement to police, saying she was not legally required to.