{"id":52091,"date":"2025-08-08T04:55:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T04:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/52091\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T04:55:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T04:55:13","slug":"death-of-freebirthers-baby-during-homebirth-preventable-authentic-birthkeeper-emily-lal-actions-examined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/52091\/","title":{"rendered":"Death of freebirther\u2019s baby during homebirth \u2018preventable\u2019, Authentic Birthkeeper Emily Lal actions examined"},"content":{"rendered":"

The death of a baby girl at a Melbourne home in a \u201cfreebirthing\u201d tragedy could have been prevented, the coroner has ruled.<\/p>\n

Baby E died in December 2022, hours after she was born at home in a birthing pool hired by her parents from an Instagram influencer who opposes medical intervention during pregnancy.<\/p>\n

The actions of her parents and the influencer, Emily Lal, were the subject of a coronial inquiry, with the findings handed down on Thursday.<\/p>\n

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The newborn\u2019s mother, Ms E, fell pregnant aged 41 and did not see a GP or obstetrician for the usual antenatal tests and scans, only visiting one GP during the entire pregnancy for a check-up at 36 weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything was normal, (she) felt fantastic, (she) had no scans and no check-ups\u201d, she stated.<\/p>\n

At 36 weeks, Ms E visited GP Peter Lucas, who examined her and the size, position and heartbeat appeared to be normal.<\/p>\n

However, Dr Lucas said Ms E rejected an offer of a blood screen and a late pregnancy ultrasound. He claims she told him she\u2019d \u201chad enough investigations over the course of the pregnancy\u201d but did not tell him how she planned to give birth.<\/p>\n

This was the only medical consultation she had during the entire pregnancy and there are no records of any antenatal tests or scans.<\/p>\n

Ms E said she responded to an advertisement for The Authentic Birthkeeper, run by Instagrammer Emily Lal, offering birthing pools for hire. Ms E contacted Ms Lal directly to hire the pool and then stayed in contact \u201csocially\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms Lal posts controversial, anti-intervention content and claims she is \u201cvery disillusioned with the medical system\u201d and that registered midwives are \u201ccomplicit in, and contributing to, the harm of women\u201d.<\/p>\n

On her Instagram page Ms Lal says she provides \u201csupport, guidance & education to prepare you to own your birth\u201d, not medical advice.<\/p>\n

\"InfluencerInfluencer Emily Lal advocates for ‘freebirths’ without medical assistance. Credit: Unknown\/Instagram<\/p>\n

Ms E went into labour on December 27, 2022. Her partner filled the birthing pool she had hired from Ms Lal and she spent the entire day and night in the pool, with Ms E occasionally leaving the pool to go to the toilet.<\/p>\n

The water was emptied and refilled on the morning of December 28. This is the only time the water was changed.<\/p>\n

About 10pm, feeling that the birth was imminent Ms E asked her partner to get in the pool with her and assist in the birth. The baby girl was born about 10.30pm.<\/p>\n

Ms E did not deliver the placenta and the cord was not cut.<\/p>\n

The couple then went to bed with the baby. When she woke the next morning Ms E tried to deliver the placenta but could not. Sometime between 6.30am and 7.30am she noticed something was wrong with her baby.<\/p>\n

Ms E claimed she sent a message to Ms Lal and during a subsequent FaceTime call Ms Lal saw the baby and advised Ms E to call Triple-0.<\/p>\n

But Ms Lal told the Coroner the only contact she had with Ms E was when she hired the pool and when she attended the home after emergency services arrived to attend to Baby E. But she gave a different story to a staff member at Mercy Hospital in Melbourne and to police.<\/p>\n

In these conversations she revealed she had received messages from Ms E immediately after the birth saying \u201cI did it\u201d and then another just before 8am on December 30 stating \u201cwe can\u2019t wake her, we aren\u2019t sure if she\u2019s breathing\u201d and a picture was sent at 8.10am in which the baby\u2019s face was blue.<\/p>\n

Ms Lal didn\u2019t see the messages for 25 minutes. She then made a Facetime call and saw the baby, which she believed to be deceased, and told the parents to call an ambulance.<\/p>\n

An autopsy on the baby determined her cause of death as neonatal pneumonia, meconium aspiration and chorioamnionitis \u201csecondary to prolonged labour in a home birthing pool\u201d.<\/p>\n

Chorioamnionitis is a maternal infection that is transmitted vaginally and the reason that pregnant women undergo antenatal Group B Streptococcus testing.<\/p>\n

Forensic Pathologist Dr Yeliena Baber found that the baby had probably been in distress for some time before her death.<\/p>\n

Coroner Catherine Fitzgerald found the baby girl\u2019s death was preventable and the circumstances of the birth occurring in the birthing pool contributed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was unlikely to have occurred if the birth occurred in a hospital setting, and it may also have been avoided if the birth was a planned homebirth with appropriate midwife support.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe birth of Baby E was a planned freebirth with an absence of antenatal medical management.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, she did not identify any specific prevention opportunities. She recommended government health authorities update their guidelines on water birth safety.<\/p>\n

The coroner made no adverse findings against Ms and Mr E or Ms Lal.<\/p>\n

Ms Lal has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The death of a baby girl at a Melbourne home in a \u201cfreebirthing\u201d tragedy could have been prevented,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[63,43,137,44,6213,41,39,42,40,660],"class_list":["post-52091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-australia","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-news","tag-society","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}