Lal told the inquest<\/a> that although she had been paid to support Warnecke, her role was primarily that of a supportive friend, that she was not clinically trained, and that it was not her responsibility to make Warnecke\u2019s birth safer, or to call an ambulance unless specifically asked.<\/p>\nShe said she never gave Warnecke medical advice, and only shared her own experiences of freebirthing her own children.<\/p>\n
Lal also told the inquest that she no longer had access to texts Warnecke sent to her alerting her that she had gone into labour on 26 September, or any texts after that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got a new phone and lost everything,\u201d Lal told the court. Counsel assisting the coroner, Rachel Ellyard, asked Lal when she lost her phone, with Lal replying, \u201cOctober or November, I can\u2019t remember\u201d.<\/p>\n
Lal added that she then mainly texted Warnecke\u2019s husband, Nathan, before going to their home to support the birth.<\/p>\n
Lal gave evidence on the condition that the coroner granted her protection against her answers being used against her in future civil or criminal proceedings.<\/p>\n
The inquest had been due to close on Friday.<\/p>\n
On Thursday afternoon, Ellyard told that coroner that the contents of a forensic analysis of Warnecke\u2019s phone had been made available to the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems to me that the contents that have been made available raise issues that are going to require some further investigation and perhaps the gathering of further evidence,\u201d Ellyard said.<\/p>\n
As a result, the court was adjourned to a date yet to be determined.<\/p>\n
Addressing Warnecke\u2019s family members, who were listening to the inquest online, coroner Therese McCarthy said \u201csometimes investigations\u2026 take a different course because new information comes to hand\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI take the view that this material is of such significance that the court must delay making any findings and hearing submissions until we\u2019ve had an opportunity to undertake a proper analysis of that material, and potentially call for more evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier on Thursday, expert medical witnesses Dr Mark Tarrant, an obstetrician and gynaecologist and Dr Catherine Adams, a midwife, gave evidence that they believed Warneck\u2019s condition was treatable had either a midwife been present at the home birth, or had Warnecke given birth at a hospital.<\/p>\n
Adams said that postpartum haemorrhage is common enough that it is always in a midwives\u2019 minds as a possibility, and that they are always assessing factors throughout pregnancy and labour that might increase that risk, so that they are ready to quickly intervene. She said quick intervention makes the condition treatable.<\/p>\n
A midwife would have had treatments ready in case of such a complication, she said. \u201cWe recognise once it starts, it can be quite catastrophic,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Adams said she believed within half an hour of the haemorrhage occurring and with no treatment administered, medical staff subsequently treating Warnecke had \u201clost the opportunity to control the situation\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The closing submissions in an inquest into the death of a woman who gave birth at home with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":742233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-744118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744118","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=744118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/742233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}