As Stacey Warnecke lay on the floor of her home, short of breath after a massive postpartum haemorrhage, the woman she hired as her birthkeeper, Emily Lal, told her she was likely having a panic attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t leave me,\u201d Warnecke said to Lal, who had no medical qualifications, but who Warnecke had paid $6,000 to support her pregnancy, a coroner\u2019s court heard this week.<\/p>\n
Lal\u2019s now removed website, which was referred to during the inquest, states: \u201cI believe that \u2026 outsourcing responsibility for your and your baby\u2019s wellbeing to any external authority (be it a person or a test) is dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Birthkeepers have no medical training and operate outside the medical system. They believe a woman\u2019s body innately knows what to do during childbirth \u2013 including if something goes wrong \u2013 and doctors and midwives are not required.<\/p>\n
Warnecke, a 30-year-old nutritionist and wellness influencer, died on 29 September 2025 in Frankston hospital, in south-east Melbourne<\/a>, after complications related to a haemorrhage at home. Staff exhausted the hospital\u2019s blood supply and performed surgeries on her heart and uterus to try to save her.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n The inquest heard that an ambulance was called only after Warnecke explicitly gave Lal permission to call, the third time Lal asked her, and around half an hour after the bleed.<\/p>\n Lal told the inquest it was not her role to make the decision to call an ambulance.<\/p>\n In the background of the triple zero call played to the coroner, Warnecke is heard moaning as her baby cries.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bleeding has stopped,\u201d Lal told the operator. Asked by counsel assisting the coroner, Rachel Ellyard, about her calm demeanour on the phone, Lal said; \u201cI\u2019m pretty calm in emergencies\u201d.<\/p>\n The inquest heard that Warnecke was not fully lucid by the time the first paramedic arrived, who found Warnecke on the floor, with a large clot next to her.<\/p>\n Warnecke had told Lal: \u201cI\u2019m bleeding\u201d before the call, the inquest heard. Lal looked between her legs, could not see blood and told Warnecke she was not bleeding.<\/p>\n Emily Lal leaves the inquest at the Melbourne coroner\u2019s court on Tuesday. Photograph: Con Chronis\/AAP<\/p>\n Lal told the inquest that when she attends a birth, \u201cI\u2019m attending as a supportive friend.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not there to make a birth safer<\/a>. I can\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Ellyard said to her: \u201cBut you\u2019re being paid to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not clinically trained,\u201d Lal said. \u201cIt\u2019s not my role to assess blood loss.\u201d<\/p>\n Expert medical witnesses told the inquest Warnecke would have been bleeding internally, and symptoms of a postpartum haemorrhage are not all visible.<\/p>\n Warnecke is one of a growing number of women choosing medically unassisted births, known as \u201cfreebirths\u201d, and unregulated, non-medically-trained support persons for their pregnancies, the inquest heard.<\/p>\n The question of why is a key question coroner Therese McCarthy is considering.<\/p>\n The inquest heard evidence from the 2024 NSW birth trauma inquiry<\/a>, which found some women have suffered \u201cdistressing\u201d, \u201cunacceptable\u201d and \u201cpreventable\u201d birth trauma in the medical system.<\/p>\n Women shared that they felt dehumanised in hospital and, in some cases, experienced what they described as violence. Some said they were subjected to painful, invasive interventions with lasting effects they felt they did not give informed consent to.<\/p>\n Warnecke, a first-time mother, had a \u201cdeep fear\u201d of such interventions happening to her, counsel assisting, Rachel Ellyard, told the coroner.<\/p>\n \u201cShe felt \u2026 that her only option to have a baby on her own terms was to look for an alternative to hospital care,\u201d Ellyard said.<\/p>\n Nearly half of all births in Victorian hospitals result in caesarean births, the inquest heard. Expert witness, obstetrician Dr Mark Tarrant told the coroner this was partly due to women choosing a caesarean, caesareans becoming safer, and women giving birth later, creating more risks requiring interventions.<\/p>\n Midwife Dr Catherine Adams, also an expert witness, agreed but told the coroner: \u201cIt\u2019s naive of us to think that all clinicians practice to the highest standard that they should or could.<\/p>\n \u201cI have been involved in providing opinion on many adverse outcomes that have occurred in hospital from substandard practice,. And that is a tragedy \u2026 but it also is a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n Ellyard told the coroner it was hard to estimate how many women chose a freebirth; if those births go well, \u201cas perhaps many do, they won\u2019t come to the attention of medical services\u201d.<\/p>\n However, evidence heard throughout the inquest suggested the number of freebirth cases coming to the attention of medical services because something went wrong was increasing.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are \u2026 in some cases, tragic outcomes,\u201d Ellyard said.<\/p>\n The inquest heard from medical experts who said because Warnecke\u2019s early stage of labour lasted approximately three days, her uterus was likely exhausted and unable to contract and stop the bleeding following the birth of the placenta.<\/p>\n Had a midwife been there, they would have had treatments on hand to quickly assist and identified early warning signs, the inquest heard.<\/p>\n All of the expert medical witnesses who gave evidence over four days of hearings said Warnecke\u2019s death was preventable had medical staff been involved, and that postpartum haemorrhage was not uncommon but was treatable. It iwas rare for women to die from one when it was recognised early, they said.<\/p>\n Lal told the inquest she wasn\u2019t concerned by the length of Warnecke\u2019s labour.<\/p>\n \u201cEarly labour \u2026 it\u2019s like \u2026 not even real labour,\u201d she told the inquest. \u201cShe was still, you know, quite happy; she was sleeping when she could,\u201d Lal said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t sleep when you\u2019re in a first-time labour.\u201d<\/p>\n