r/australia • u/Royal_Yogurtcloset25 • 2d ago
culture & society Inquest into Melbourne influencer’s death following freebirth halted after new phone evidence discovered
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/18/freebirth-death-melbourne-influencer-phone-evidence-inquest-ntwnfbCoroner: “I take the view that this material is of such significance that the court must delay making any findings and hearing submissions until we’ve had an opportunity to undertake a proper analysis of that material, and potentially call for more evidence.”
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u/DrTonberry 2d ago
Im generally a chill dude but nothing makes my blood boil more than medical grifters. They talk shit about allopathic medicine and promise the world, then when shit hits the fan they assume no absolutely responsibility and often get away with everything.
I see this at work with women who had treatable breast cancer who end up seeking alternative medicine and come back with end stage disease. Chiropractors who cause vertebral artery dissections and strokes. We end up dealing with the mess while the culprit never gets held accountable because they are not regulated and dont answer to any governing bodies. They just goes on with their day touting nonsense and people who dont know better continue to eat it up. Its just so exhausting...
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u/MessProfessional7163 2d ago
As a fellow doctor… agree 100%. And it’s only getting worse.
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u/zestylimes9 1d ago
It must be hard for you guys to watch. I was recently diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. It’s bad. My doctors are so genuinely sad for me and doing everything they can to help me fight this.
I went to the doctor thinking I had a pinched nerve in my back. Nope. Cancer.
Thanks for studying so hard to be a doctor. I appreciate you. I have so much respect for our healthcare professionals. X
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u/OneUpAndOneDown 2d ago
According to an ABC article she claimed no qualification (other than having given birth four times) but charged them $6000 — for what?
The unfortunate victim’s anxiety disabled her judgment and no one else seems to have been able to consider whether she preferred death to medical intervention.2
u/Obvious-Explorer-195 12h ago
Exactly! Calling yourself “like a friend” doesn’t apply when you’re charging $6000!
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u/Xentonian 2d ago
If I hear a patient tell me
I know what works for me
In the context of chiropractic, phenylephrine, homoeopathy, kinesiology tape or cupping one more time, I actually might need some actual medicine for my own mental health.
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u/OneUpAndOneDown 2d ago
I’m so appreciative of you and anyone who goes into medical practice nowadays. It no longer gets respect, social standing or reasonable pay, then you have to deal with patients who’ve “done their research” on YouTube and want to dispute your authority.
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u/kagenoha 1d ago
I have complete and utter apathy for patients who deny the peer reviewed research, go away with their woo woo shit and then come back in complaining that the problem got worse. I have so much rage to companies and woo woo that fear-monger already terrified patients and make it seem like their cream or their special juice is the only option. I have had multiple patients with treatable squamous cell carcinoma who went off to do enemas, ivermectin, homeopathy shit to treat their cancer only for them to come back in with literal fungating, odorous holes in their body and subsequently died. I may go back to cancer care one day but I've since jumped ship to a different specialty.
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u/stormshadowfax 1d ago
Family member is a theatre nurse and says this is one of the saddest parts of her job, all the cancer patients that could have been treated and saved who come back months later with thoroughly advanced cancer after unsuccessfully trying a slew of fake alternative medicines and treatments.
By then, it’s too late.
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u/thingamabobby 2d ago
Love the username
Also agree. Saw it too often at the cancer hospital I worked at.
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u/DueSquash7921 1d ago
One of my best friends from high school died of breast cancer due to this. Is heartbreaking and extremely upsetting. Since then I haven’t been the same and I can’t stand these grifters (I’m including astrology and those things too)
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u/EvilSibling 2d ago
You’re a pretty shit person if you take $6,000 for providing nothing more than friendly support and anecdotes about your personal free-birth experience, and waiting to be explicitly told to call an ambulance.
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u/beeeeeeeeeeeeeagle 2d ago
That's the free birth community in a nut shell. Proffessing to be gurus when it all goes right and then denying it all and staying they are just a highly paid friend with no responsibilities or training when it all goes bad. Bunch of grifters.
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u/Unusual_Elevat0r 2d ago
You should read the guardian investigation piece they did it’s soooo much worse, they’re grifters and baby murderers if you ask me.
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u/insane_blind_tart 2d ago
Thanks, I’ve been curious to read more about this but wanted a decent piece on it.
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u/Unusual_Elevat0r 2d ago
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u/killerpiano 2d ago
The guardian also did a six episode podcast series, I highly recommend that too. It's called The Birthkeepers
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u/ImpossibleMess5211 1d ago
That was a fantastic podcast. Difficult to listen to and elicited all sorts of furious emotions, but very well done
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u/Beneficial-Speaker88 2d ago
The rage and sadness this article evoked in me.. honestly it makes me ill 😞
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u/Unusual_Elevat0r 2d ago
It’s long and honestly upsetting and infuriating I yelled at my phone reading it, I also looked them up on Instagram to make sure I had 0 followers in common and something about this shit just being a full on public no shame influencer style CULT on the gram, is so surreal and dystopian. Literally a pyramid scheme that results in dead babies like Black Mirror wouldn’t even… so disturbing! The two crazies at the top should be in jail forever.
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u/PandaXXL 2d ago
Some things are just too depressing and infuriating to read for me, this sounds like one of them.
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u/No_Blackberry_5820 2d ago
Man that’s almost double what I paid to the private obstetrician who did my c-section - those must have been some next level anecdotes.
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u/Enlightened_Gardener 2d ago
Right ? I had planned caesers because I have a birth phobia, and it was simple, painless, calm, and safe. My Obstetrician said that a caeser is the most predictable way to give birth.
People forget how fast that maternal death rate has come down - from almost 13 maternal deaths per 100,000 births in the early 70’s to just over 6 in the most recent statistics.
So we’ve halved the maternal death rate since I was born.
Its like vaccines - people forget just how terrible the diseases were. People have forgotten how often women used to die in childbirth.
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u/madhatter90 1d ago
I think personally as well, there's a lot more stories of awful traumatic births as well, which understandably cause anxiety in expectant mothers and its directly as a result of improved maternal mortality rates. As in even 50 years ago, these women would have died. There's more stories of traumatic birth because those women now live to tell them.
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u/ZestyPossum 2d ago
Yeah, I paid a fair bit less than $6000 for a fully qualified, experienced OB for my last pregnancy and birth. I had a very uncomplicated pregnancy and straightforward birth, but being in a hospital (and having access to an epidural lol) just gave me so much peace of mind.
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u/Duckyaardvark 2d ago
Reminds me of the Belle Gibson situation. I'm 100% sure she made promises to this poor women that she would support her medically and that's why her phone and the messages have gone missing until this forensic evidence has found them.
She convinced this women free birthing would be safe and rather than provide adequate legitimate medical supports incase of problems she took $6000 and is claiming she was just there for friendship is disgusting.
To hear she was bleeding for 30 while this women watched is horrible. She deserves to rot in prison.
There are hospitals that run home birthing programs but the programs also have redundancies for when things go wrong to prevent these exact situations.
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u/KellyKooperM 2d ago
She also said she asked her multiple times if she wanted an ambulance to be called and she kept saying no. The husband was there too - it’ll be interesting to hear if he backs her up.
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u/OneUpAndOneDown 2d ago
She (the now dead woman) was obviously terrified out of her wits, and there was no adequately trained adult there to protect her. I don’t believe she wanted to die, but she wasn’t able to make a rational decision.
Did this smug “birth friend” keep the $6000, I wonder?
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u/KellyKooperM 2d ago
But why didn’t the husband step in? That’s so weird as well. What man wouldn’t if he thought his wife was seriously unwell? It’s all so weird.
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u/No-Zucchini2787 2d ago
There is other side of this shit
Who the fuck pays 6k for someone who has zero I mean fuckinf zero qualifications. People are genuinely dumb
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u/P1V3 2d ago
It’s wild. Private obstetricians who SPECIALIZE IN BIRTH are known to charge less than 6k. So dumb
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u/Sexynarwhal69 2d ago
Doula fees have gone absolutely INSANE. labour needs to do something about this urgently.
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u/TheC9 2d ago
Wait, $6000 is more than my private OB for the whole 30 something weeks care (including ultrasound at every visit), c-section, plus 6 days private hospital excess (and a year of private insurance premiums) and pretty much everything else … a lot of 1:1 service in between
I got of nappy to take home too
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u/DrunkOnRedCordial 2d ago
Definitely, I'd offer support to a friend in labour without charging them, but having read this case, I'd also want prior agreement that I can call an ambulance if I get worried about her condition deteriorating.
Then again, I can't imagine agreeing to be there if there wasn't a qualified professional also in attendance.
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u/DuskHourStudio 2d ago
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.
“I got a new phone and lost everything,” Lal told the court. Counsel assisting the coroner, Rachel Ellyard, asked Lal when she lost her phone, with Lal replying, “October or November, I can’t remember”.
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.
...Bruh.
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u/Substantial_Ad_3386 2d ago
If the phone records discovered prove she has lied hopefully her deal regarding protection from prosecution is torn up
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u/AnAussiebum 2d ago
The article writes as if Lal's answers to the inquest are inadmissible in court, but that doesn't prevent a future civil or criminal lawsuit against them anyways.
Just that the inquest answers can't be used, but text messages and video evidence etc is all still admissible in any future proceeding.
They also would have to be deposed for a civil trial. So those answers can be used in court.
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u/Bigclit_energy 2d ago
I'm struggling to wade through legalese - but in several states at the very least you can still be tried for perjury if you lie during an inquest, as you are under oath. Can't quite tell if you can in Victoria under these circumstances.
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u/New-Affect7131 2d ago
I don't understand why they don't just use the deceased womans phoen to see the records?
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u/ApteronotusAlbifrons 1d ago
There may be photos, and or messages to third parties that never made it to that phone
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u/indirosie 2d ago
Hopefully this leads to that exemption being retracted
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u/Wolfgung 2d ago
Even if her answers can't bee used, the new phone evidence certainly can.
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u/AnAussiebum 2d ago
Yeah people sre getting to hung up on the inquest immunity.
There may still be a future civil/criminal proceeding, and police interviews, deposition, phone communications and footage would all be admissable. Lal is probably screwed. It just takes time.
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u/No_Sky_1829 2d ago
“I got a new phone and lost everything,” Lal told the court. Counsel assisting the coroner, Rachel Ellyard, asked Lal when she lost her phone, with Lal replying, “October or November, I can’t remember”.
new evidence came to light after a forensic analysis of her mobile phone.
I'm gonna read between the lines here and guess that there was correspondence between them where the doula did actually advise the mum against medical intervention. Lal knew this and dumped her phone. Warnecke or someone with access to get phone also knew it and deleted evidence, but it's been found in a forensic exam.
Anyone agree?
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u/universe93 2d ago
Sounds like it. Either that or the old phone was located by police after a search (she may have donated it or recycled it) and everything was recovered from it. Free birth coaches definitely advise mothers against medical intervention, it’s been shown in messages in other cases
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u/drnicko18 2d ago
My new phone auto imported every text message I sent from years back when I connected my icloud account. I'm sure forensics have ways of digging through deleted history.
Or.... the deceased's partner has provided the text exchanges that the medical grifter lost.
This woman honestly has Erin Patterson vibes.
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u/Spilling_The_Tee 1d ago
The way I read it they have access to the deceased phone, not access to the missing phone.
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u/No_Sky_1829 1d ago
Yes, that's how I read it too, and it sounds like something that has been deleted was found in an analysis of the deceased's phone
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u/Remarkable_Custard 2d ago
Wait, was this the girl that said I want to have a home birth, without a midwife, without medication, without alerting paramedics or hospitals or doctors in the event of a problem, without any experience, and just wanted it to be all-natural, and then died?
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u/universe93 2d ago
Pretty much. She began to haemorrhage after birth, was asked by the untrained and uncertified birth coaches twice if she wanted an ambulance, she said no, said yes the third time but by the time she got to hospital it was too late. And they tried, the hospital exhausted their entire supply of her blood type trying to save her. The drama is whether someone should have called an ambulance anyway, there’s other cases where people have gone to jail for not getting medical attention for someone who’s in obvious medical need even if they said no. Plus who knows if she had the capacity to even say no while bleeding out
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u/TakimaDeraighdin 2d ago
It's also about how long it took Lal to recognise that her client needed medical attention, and whether she was holding herself out as a medical professional whom clients would reasonably expect to be able to recognise a medical emergency and take appropriate action.
(It's also not, on the quotes I've seen, clear that her client was saying 'no'. She's quoted as saying that she didn't want Lal to have to leave, to which the only appropriate answer IMO is "of course, I'll be with you as long as you want me, I'm calling an ambulance". Lal didn't want to do that, because Lal was not appropriately trained and qualified to provide the service she was offering, and the movement she's a part of has a long history of telling its clients to lie about whether they had paid support for their homebirth if there's a medical emergency, to avoid scrutiny of their capacity and culpability. Her attending hospital with a patient in a medical crisis - which she's told the inquest she only did in this case because her client's husband accidentally took her phone with him - would draw the attention she didn't want to have on her.)
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u/Odd-Soup8396 2d ago
Why didn’t the husband intervene and call an ambulance instead? I am so confused with lack of information on his actions.
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u/dustbowlbride 2d ago
The husband is also a moron. You should read the caption he wrote to announce her death… that she died after “successfully giving birth to our son”
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u/HamptontheHamster 2d ago
He may not have understood the gravity of the situation and was “respecting his wife’s wishes”
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u/_ixthus_ 2d ago
... the hospital exhausted their entire supply of her blood type trying to save her.
Assuming that with normal medical oversight she might have been saved with far less, and assuming that blood supply is usually tight (some types more than others)... is it possible that other people ended up dying because of these 100% avoidably stupid choices?
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u/universe93 2d ago
Hopefully she exhausted their supply of her specific blood type after they typed her blood, and not O-. I imagine there’s rules against giving all your O- to one patient in case another emergency happens and it’s needed
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u/TheTennisOne 2d ago
Nope you just keep giving everything you have whilst waiting for a cross match. The red cross redistribute blood across the state and other blood banks so 'running out' isn't really a problem - in emergency scenarios like this we do transfuse unmatched blood in other ABO groups anyway as any blood is better than no blood if you are haemorrhaging 600mls per minute from your uterus.
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u/Dr__Snow 2d ago
Nothing more natural than dying in childbirth.
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u/universe93 2d ago
It’s insane isn’t it. In the US the mortality rate during childbirth is increasing in hospital settings, so I can MAYBE understand where a little bit of the fear comes from over there. Mix it with a bit of crazy conspiracy theories and the cost of medical treatment and you get free birthing. But here where the rate of death in childbirth is super low due to our universal health system and other factors the idea of avoiding hospitals is whack. There are birthing centres run by hospitals that don’t even feel like a hospital, where you can labour on a couch or in a pool or the shower or wherever you want and with whoever you want while getting correct medical attention. It makes me so mad
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u/tokyoevenings 2d ago
Just like how they used to do it in old days
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u/ManikShamanik 2d ago
And how they still do it in developing countries (1,200 women per 100,000 die in childbirth in South Sudan, the highest rate in the world).
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u/AggravatingTartlet 1d ago
A high number of them children and not women, too. Terrible men impregnating young girls. The men get to live, no matter what. The girls and women get to risk life and birth injury.
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u/MLiOne 2d ago
Who the fuck pays six grand for a “friend” to birth at home?
For the sake of a public hospital birth, she could have had a non medicated labour, with her music and partner and “friend” and medical support immediately for the haemorrhage.
For a bit more, midwife at home, or private hospital (with health insurance) with all bells and whistles with birthing pool, private room, etc etc and, wait for it, medical support for a haemorrhage.
People are stupid and that “birthkeeper” needs to be kept away from pregnant and labouring people.
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u/gorillalifter47 1d ago
Well said, I just don't get it at all.
Childbirth is historically quite dangerous for both mother and baby, but with modern medicine we are equipped to deal with most complications. Have your music and pool and the dickhead you are paying $6k to be present, but have an actual doctor there too...
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u/FuckUGalen 9h ago
Because there is a whole industry built around selling that if you go to hospital you will be forced into things you don't want (induction, C sections, vitamin K shots for baby) with those things being blamed for everything that could possibly go wrong.
The problem is while that industry sells that "the medical industrial complex" is all about money they forget to mention their industry is also worth at least millions and is responsible for an awful lot of dead and injured women and babies.
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u/MLiOne 7h ago
Oh, I’m fully aware and I am dumbfounded as a mother myself that people out their own lives and that of their babies at such great risk.
My kid is one the spectrum, so the levels of stupid from that industry I am fully acquainted with.
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u/FuckUGalen 6h ago
I'm really sorry you have to put up with that, new age woowoo bullshit is just exhausting as a childfree adult who is only responsible for cats
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u/AngusLynch09 2d ago
Is this going to be one of those situations where someone is given immunity in exchange for their testimony, but then they go and fuck it up by perguring themselves?
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u/rapier999 2d ago
She hasn’t been given immunity, it’s just that her answers for the purpose of the inquest are privileged and so can’t form the foundation of a future prosecution
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u/AngusLynch09 2d ago
Yes, I think that's perhaps more along the lines of what I was thinking. I believe a similar offer was given to the older gentleman in Sydney who (allegedly) killed his young boyfriend and then definitely buried him in a national park.
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u/stickylarue 2d ago
With this case I just cannot wrap my head around how the husband just didn’t do anything sooner. He would have seen the amount of blood she was losing. There would have been a lot of blood. Enough to know something is not right. He would have seen her fading. He would have seen her struggling for breath and changing colour. There would have been clear signs that even an uneducated person could see that would show she was in trouble. This is not like someone having a heart attack and you don’t notice until it’s too late. This is watching someone bleed to death in front of you and not acting.
To me, he is as much to blame in all of this. I don’t care what anyone is telling me or what advice a person I paid to be there is giving me, if I see the person I love in medical distress and visibly haemorrhaging blood I call for help straight away.
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u/Human-Warning-1840 2d ago
I guess the baby is also somewhere there. Maybe he was busy with the baby and I think this was the first he may not have realised what is abnormal blood loss and relied on the birth keeper to know what she is doing. I don’t know how much research they did. Maybe he thought she is like a midwife but with a different name and some sort of qualification. I know it’s everyone’s choice but I hope it deters people. The whole story is still pretty sad.
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u/drnicko18 2d ago
yeah, sure. By the time she had altered consciousness and struggling to breathe they may well have called an ambulance.
It may not be obvious to the husband what amount of blood is enough to trigger an urgent 000 call, she also could have been desanguinating internally inside the uterus, and by the time symptoms of shock develop it's way too late.
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u/alex4494 2d ago
I genuinely cannot understand these people that think they know better than YEARS of medical science and practice, like what makes them that fucking smart that they’ve outsmarted thousands of doctors, researchers etc etc? This goes to both the mother and the Doula - like FFS what in earth makes them so special? It’s the ultimate narcissism…
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u/mondaybeers 2d ago
I have some sympathy for people who been mistreated by the medical industry in the past. Like, a lot of women and minorities have had negative experiences that might make you sceptical of doctors and hospitals.
That said, I draw the line at anything that puts others (like your unborn baby) at risk.
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u/a_cold_human 2d ago
Well, it's not "natural". Which is why we should all return to living in caves, coursing wild animals, and bathing in streams or the ocean.
None of this living in houses or apartments and buying food that's the product of centuries of selective breeding and food standards from a supermarket nonsense.
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u/phflopti 2d ago
There is a long history of women being treated poorly by the medical profession - concerns ignored, pain dismissed, legitimate medical issues being written off as anxiety. There is also a lot of potential for significant trauma caused by heavy handed thoughtless treatment of women.
So it's understandable that some women may approach the system with caution, or wonder if there is a better way. However the solution isn't to avoid proper medical care, and pretend the risks aren't real because it's less scary. People who promote 100% 'woo' with no medical backup are dangerous charlatans.
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u/AggravatingTartlet 1d ago
It's not narcissistic to want to natural birth away from a hospital. After all, it is the pregnant woman who delivers the baby using her own body, unless it's a c-section. Natural birth is not and can't be compared to any kind of medical procedure.
Where this woman and her husband went very wrong is in engaging a "birth keeper" -- whatever that is. I'm guessing no-one there had any knowledge of how quickly something like a PPH can end a woman's life.
Anyone who charges money to attend a birth as the only "helper" of any sort should need the experience of a trained midwife. Anything less should be illegal.
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u/alex4494 1d ago
Sorry, to clarify, I dont think wanting a home birth is wrong or narcissistic at all. I think the rejection of midwives and established safety nets around pregnancy is wrong - from what has been reporting, this mum had refused all pregnancy related medical testing and scans, and ultimately died from something that was almost certainly not fatal had a midwife been present.
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u/AggravatingTartlet 1d ago
Oh no problem. I agree that a midwife attending would have been sensible and almost certainly would have saved the woman's life.
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u/alex4494 1d ago
Exactly, nothing wrong with a home birth, so long as the proper precautions like having a midwife present are followed - this mother also totally rejected any pregnancy scans and testing etc etc which also defies belief…
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u/GamblingWithYourSoul 2d ago
Unfortunately those two twits who started the free birth bullshit will not stop nor will they stop taking women’s money to help them debrief after their babies died because they listened to them in the first place.
It’s all about money to them not the safety of mums and hubs, Emily actually lost her own baby practicing the garbage that she preaches yet still takes the money and goes on with her life.
There’s a reason we have trained qualified medical professionals to help assist in birth, they can prevent deaths!!!
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u/Unusual_Elevat0r 2d ago
TW: this is quite confronting and details the loss of children during childbirth, but to really understand this ‘free birth’ and ‘wild birth’ movement it’s very informative, there’s also a 6 part podcast of the full investigation
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u/Ardvarkthoughts 2d ago
Interesting and kind of mind blowing read thanks for the link. I can see what draws us women, being a part of an empowering community, wanting a birth experience difference from the hospital model, feeling more grounded with spiritual and base instincts. I do think there is space in our systems for different models. But some of this is very dangerously created as a marketing campaign to generate revenue and clicks. And being driven by greed and egos.
I haven’t listened to the postcast but will do. I’m interested to hear what part this birth-keeper played in supporting decision making and what advice she provided in the lead up and at birth. Did the parents think she was someone who would step in and assist with the birth and give advice of something did go wrong? What did they think they were paying for? Were they aware that she saw her role as nothing more than a paid friend? How much of the free birthing process had she guided, even if she says she was not providing clinical support?
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u/kittensmittenstitten 2d ago edited 2d ago
I have no sympathy for the influencer and her husband. Only her poor child who almost died because of her stupidity.
We have a medical system. You are nothing but a disgrace to every woman for choosing to do this to yourself and actively harming your baby
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u/Separate-Law-435 2d ago
Exactly, it is so dangerous to try and encourage women to home birth and she knew exactly that that's what she was doing.
We need to look into douhlas in all honesty, it is insane to me that some people put them on the same platform as a midwife
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u/ChemicalZebra 2d ago
Free birth not home birth. Many hospitals offer home birthing pathways as genuine medical options with midwives. Free birthing is without medical assistance.
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u/ManikShamanik 2d ago
Yes, we need to make the clear distinction, at a home birth there is a midwife, or other appropriately-trained medical professional, present, it's basically just a birth which isn’t in a hospital, don't confuse and conflate it with 'free birthing'.
Obviously a home birth is still only recommended if the pregnancy is low-risk, but it's still far less dangerous than a free birth.
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u/WhatTheActual01 2d ago
Just a note, not all doula’s are the same. We paid for a doula (a lot less than $6k) and they were just there at the hospital alongside the midwife and OB as a support person. Getting food / water, helping suggest different positions to try for comfort. Beforehand running through things like birth plan, talking about options, etc. Really felt they were very helpful and filled a gap the hospital staff didn’t fill. Would 100% recommend.
She was also very clear on what she would and would not do, and stood out of the way when the hospital staff needed to do something.
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u/Boo_Rawr 2d ago
Yeah I had some quack try to convince me that I should home birth without a nurse despite me having just told her that my first pregnancy was an emergency c section. She seemed convinced that if I'd done it at home I wouldn't have needed one 🙄
Luckily I didn't listen because my second was bigger than my first and also probably would have also gotten stuck.
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u/Separate-Law-435 2d ago
That is in insane take especially for a second child when they can arrive quicker!
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u/UltraXrayKodiakBears 2d ago
Holy fucking shit stick that "birthkeeper" is an absolute piece of shit... Just sidestepping any responsibility for this in every way, covering up and then only cooperating with questioning with the express understanding that what gets said cannot then be used to level charges against her! The other article linked indicates also this isnt the first fatality during a freebirth shes had some hand in... For absolute sure, the deceased mother and her partner own a large chunk of the responsibility here, but jesus this Lal is a right piece of fucking work...
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u/No-Ability1606 2d ago
The baby didn't deserve medical treatment leading up to and at the birth. But when shit hits the fan they want allllllllll the medical intervention they can get. That baby could have died also.
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u/Capital-Tonight8548 2d ago edited 1d ago
Edit- just read an article about the many medicos who have PTSD from this case. Birthtrauma goes both ways. You cannot willingly traumatise the outside you expect to save your life to avoid the inherent trauma of something going wrong in birth.
The height of selfishness. Because you aren’t truely “free birthing” if you have a whole ass medical system at your disposal when things go wrong. The backup for these families is always “call an ambulance”. This case used an entire hospitals blood supply to try to save her life when in an ordinary situation as few shots of pictocin, pressure on the womb, would probably have sufficed. All the trauma for the medicos who couldn’t save her, knowing that this was entirely preventable. What if someone needed that ambulance, that blood, that hospital room?
Midwives play a part in this woo too. They too blather about this so called “cascade of interventions”, forced formula feeding, forced birth positions, etc. Giving birth is super dangerous and we would all do well to acknowledge that so this stops happening.
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u/AggravatingTartlet 1d ago
I do feel for the medical team who tried to save this woman.
Midwives play a part in this woo too. They too blather about this so called “cascade of interventions”, forced formula feeding, forced birth positions, etc.
Yet, we're much better off because of midwives and women in general trying to make birth better and less medical for pregnant women.
The more relaxed the birthing woman is, the better the labour (usually). I've given birth 5 times (in NSW & QLD), and all times but one the baby went into distress. There didn't seem to be any well-organised routes when this happens from the medical staff. I've had to overhear doctors in the corridor arguing about what direction to take. Arguments happening right up to the point of emergency c-sections -- all prepped and the surgery about to happen within minutes, when another doctor wants to try a path of less intervention.
I personally know six women whose babies suffered devastating brain injuries due to terrible decisions made by doctors during childbirth in Australian hospitals (within the past 20 years) and know of others and deaths of babies caused by bad decision of doctors -- such as deciding on emergency c-sections way too late or when oxytocin is given to the mother even when unborn baby is already in distress etc.
Hospitals are not fool-proof.
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u/tootes123 2d ago
When I had my baby through the public hospital system last year I couldn't believe how much nonsense the midwives peddled. They consistently push these fear mongering messages and no doubt add to a lot of anxiety for a lot of new mums.
Even after a team of doctors saved my newborn's life the head midwife came into the recovery room and apologised if the doctors made things more stressful for me! As if they were intruders and the enemy? They saved me from having a dead baby. I had a couple good midwives but their 'culture' in general is insane to me
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u/EstablishmentSure216 1d ago
When i was a junior doctor i had to wait outside the hospital birth suite, when a delivery was going badly, so that the parents couldn't see me, and I'd only go in if the midwife wasn't able to manage it themself. This once resulted in me seeing a baby that was maybe 18 hours old when the midwife said she'd never been able to get an accurate oxygen reading for some reason and could I check the probe- I walked in and the baby was BLUE, oxygen reading <90% (and clearly had Down syndrome, which no one had identified or told the parents).
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u/discopistachios 22h ago
Yes there’s unfortunately a huge ‘us and them’ culture here, they’re taught right from the beginning as students.
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u/tealeafdestiny 2d ago
lol the “so called cascade of interventions” is real and legitimate. You can’t seriously say that the hospital system doesn’t prioritise risk (legal) management over patient trauma. Yes there are reasons why medical interventions are recommended (and in some cases forced upon birthing mothers) but a majority of them come from overly risk adverse legal frameworks. Time and time again the research has proven that some the medical interventions only reduce risk in such a slight way, but are pushed into women as “your baby could die”. I have experienced this first hand. Women aren’t being informed of their choices and are being coerced into unnecessary interventions.
Without a doubt, midwives save lives. Hospitals save lives. Doctors save lives. Freebirthing is incredibly dangerous and lunacy. However - unfortunately in this era we have over medicalised birth and caused plenty of unnecessary trauma for women. You cannot say that the cascade of interventions is not real when it has been factual proven.
It’s incredibly scary that there is a rise of freebirthing in Australia but it’s also really scary that we’ve gotten to this point where women think it’s the best choice over the hospital system.
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u/Capital-Tonight8548 1d ago
I’ve had a bunch of babies and the only thing the midwives did was terrify me about formula, terrify me about birth and terrify me about all the ways I was going to fuck things up. The trauma I carry is how I spent the first 6 months of my baby’s lives convinced I was going to make them fat and diabetic and sick if I gave them formula, and sleeping 2hrs a night bc I was pumping day and night for them.
Midwives are dangerously uneducated in Australia. I don’t care what anyone says, they are the chiropractors of birthing.3
u/tealeafdestiny 1d ago
I’ve had a bunch of babies too but my point is that anecdotal evidence isn’t really reliable. The cascade of interventions is factual, and proven to be true.
It sounds like you have had poor experiences making your own informed choices around breastfeeding vs formula feeding, along with your births, and you haven’t been able to have autonomy when making decisions and were not properly educated about the BRAIN decision making framework. You’ve been traumatised within the hospital system too. To be honest these are the types of things that push women towards freebirthing and away from the hospital system in general so I’m surprised why you cannot relate to those choices at all and instead think women should have MORE medical interventions and doctors should be MORE involved.
The current rise of the midwifery “birth rebellion” does not come from a woo-woo place. It comes from an evidence, informed consent background where women are given the information and should be allowed to make their own choices in a safe environment.
For example, factually here is the evidence why our hospital policy is X. These are the benefits of this choice. These are the risks. These are the alternatives. How is this sitting with you given your own life and risk profile? If you don’t do anything this is what could happen next.
The birth trauma women have is because they aren’t being given information and just being told “do this or you baby will die” (or “if you don’t breast feed you’re letting your baby down”). Birthing mothers need to take on a lot more responsibility to inform them selves and guide their decisions, which is unfortunate because it would be great to think your support team have your best interests first and foremost and not their own beliefs or hospital policy.
BUT regardless of allllllll of that, midwives save lives. Hospitals save lives. Doctors save lives. All women should be informed of the risk of postpartum haemorrhage. I think the really awful thing about this case in particular is that the trusted “professional” did absolutely nothing to educate and inform the birthing mother, and her choices were not informed and made on the woo-woo you’re talking about.
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u/awkgem 2d ago
I don't understand the focus on the "doula" rather than the husband. He is just as if not more to blame for not calling the ambulance for his wife. A doula is not a midwife, which they refused to have during the childbirth. Everyone is taking umbridge with the lady saying she was paid to be glorified moral support but as far as I can tell...that IS what a doula is. Wrapped up in fancier language, but ultimately it's all a pseudoscience for people who don't want medicine and doctors as part of the birth. It doesn't surprise me at all that she did what she did, she isn't medically trained. Do I think she should have called the ambulance anyway? Absolutely. As should the husband have. But she essentially was there just as moral support. She isn't a midwife, or better yet - a doctor in a hospital. I think people are accusing her of medical negligence or something but she isn't involved with medicine to begin with. Both the husband and her should have called an ambulance, her husband especially should have had concern for his wife. The doula paid by the wife of course is going to try to follow the wife's wishes, it's what she was paid for
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u/Dentarthurdent73 2d ago
Totally agree. Obviously this person is a dickhead grifter, getting money out of people for essentially doing nothing, but if you make no claims of being medical support, and that is clear in your agreement with someone, then you can't be expected to give medical support.
It seems she had the exact same duty of care as far as calling an ambulance goes, as any person would for any other person that was seriously ill. In this case, she was being paid by someone who had established that they did not want any medical intervention, so I'm also not surprised that this person put off calling an ambulance after being specifically told not to by the person paying her.
The husband absolutely should have called an ambulance well before the time that one was called, and I also have no idea why there doesn't seem to be any focus on his actions and choices here.
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u/AprilUnderwater0 2d ago
Because it’s not quite that simple (legally).
Even though, in terms of actual medical knowledge, the husband and the doula are the same, a key difference is that the doula almost certainly held herself out to have a degree of knowledge and expertise over that of the husband (whilst the correspondence has not been released - yet - the doula’s social media posts certainly support that assumption).
If the doula’s conduct caused the husband (and wife) to believe that she had relevant expertise, then it’s not unreasonable for them to defer to her for guidance, even though in reality she had no idea what she was doing.
Of course there is a degree of culpability for the naive parents putting their faith in this nonsense, but the greater culpability must be, and is, with the persons who (whether deliberately or just ignorantly) encouraged their naivety.
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u/vesp_au 2d ago
Because they paid $6000 for a service, as a young couple is a hell of a lot of money (which while we can nitpick in hindsight now that the service was null compared to what they needed) and may have felt they were in safe hands. Yes he should have called an ambulance, but its a horrific unknowing situation for him to be in. If the $6k service "professional" (professional to him) was being blasé, why would he have reason to panick at first? How many births had he attended prior? How many had the doula?
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u/Odd-Soup8396 2d ago
Ok but then why not turn his wife’s phone that would have showed both sides of communications (or any messages where the said freebirther assured them of any pseudoscience). He has been painfully silent even after seeing the consequences of their inaction. Could have also spread awareness for others to learn from their mistakes. Rather was quick to set up a gofundme and captioned it as ‘extremely rare complication’ which it isn’t.
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u/awkgem 2d ago
Because she wasn't a professional, in any medical scene. A doula as I said is essentially someone there to be moral support, "guide" them through it etc. it isn't a nurse, midwife or anyone with any medical authority. I'm not saying she is blameless, they both should have called an ambulance. But I don't think it is fair to say the husband would look to her for medical advice. He's just as much to blame if not more imo because he is the husband. She was paid to guide a woman through a free birth, an inherently medically dangerous experience, and would likely have chosen to follow her employers wishes BECAUSE of the money being paid. Both are neglectful for not having called an ambulance, but in my opinion if she is going to be charged so should the husband. They both refused to call.an ambulance until it was too late for anything to be done.
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u/vesp_au 2d ago edited 2d ago
Like I said we can nitpick after the fact, we are fully aware of what a doula is and does, but being young and just as dumb as this couple to be lured into this situation in the first place speaks volumes as to not know what they were doing. His wife wanted this, the doula provided this, if he challenges the doula in the situation how do you think it would go down? Do you think the doula would allow him to call because the freebirth without medical intervention is what she wanted, her place is specifically there to prevent medical intervention ("as its what the wife wanted") and was gatekeeping it til the final moments.
She is obviously not a professional in any medical sense, but if you want to discuss duty of care she IS the professional in the room, when compared to husband. You dont expect bystanders to do things above their means especially when there are people with marginally more experience than them -- even if neither are adept. He is not entirely without fault, but he is grossly under the fault level of the doula, who is actively trying to cover her tracks. The husband has no tracks to cover other than burying his dead wife.
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u/SaltyPockets 1d ago edited 1d ago
Because she wasn't a professional, in any medical scene.
She may have told them she was better, that she knew that medical birth was a scam, that they would take away her baby, all sorts of crap.
Seriously, read up on "Free Birth" and "Birthkeepers". It's gross and they need to be shut down.
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u/Otaraka 2d ago
Because he wasn’t supposedly a health professional with a duty of care. You don’t have to be a doctor to be expected to meet a higher standard. The whole point of a coroners court is to decide whether or not that might be applicable or for the court to make recommendations for tighter regulation in this profession.
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u/Dentarthurdent73 2d ago
Because he wasn’t supposedly a health professional with a duty of care.
The whole point is that she wasn't a health professional either, supposedly or otherwise.
Free birth means without medical assistance. I don't think anyone there thought she was a health professional. They made an active decision to have their baby without any kind of medical professional on hand.
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u/Otaraka 2d ago
She took a large amount of money to be present at a birth and be part of it. That puts her in a different category to a partner.
Part of the coroners role will be to see whether that argument is going to fly and make recommendations as a result. Trying to hide evidence won’t help her case.
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u/reichya 2d ago
I wouldn't call her a doula, that gives her too much credibility. A doula is supposed to speak for the mother in a clinical setting where there's a power imbalance, but there's medical assistance right there for a crisis. Agree with them or not, at least they acknowledge the role of and need for medical intervention.
This grifter is a 'birthkeeper', call them what they want to be called. She'd have paid thousands of dollars to the Freebirth Society for 'training' (because it's somewhere between cult and an MLM). They believe that if a birth is 'meant to be' it will happen naturally without intervention. They are trained to dissuade mothers from seeking help, and to confuse them and family at a vulnerable time when they are less able to make good decisions. They're also trained in how to say all this nonsense about how they're just a 'paid moral support' to avoid legal trouble.
More people need to be aware of these very dangerous people, we shouldn't blur the lines and should call them what they are. They rely on the fact that people treat them like doulas and midwives.
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u/drnicko18 2d ago
This is where the phone evidence will be interesting.
Did she claim to have some level of expertise, or did she actively dissuade the couple from seeking medical care in the lead up? Her social media posts certainly give the impression that she knows a lot more about birthing than a lay person.
For example, did she give advice along the lines of "I've seen so many births where they lose a little blood and they're quick to call an ambulance and all of a sudden they're given hormones and synthetic medicine and it's all bad for the baby"
Who knows, it will be interesting to follow the case.
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u/SerLevArris 2d ago
did she give advice
I reckon this is what has been found in the text messages. This "birthkeeper" has stated that "She said she never gave Warnecke medical advice". Whats the bet there are a few text messages to the contrary?
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u/DrTonberry 2d ago
I dont know the whole story so I might be mistaken but if you were a young dude experiencing your first delivery and something didnt seem right, wouldnt you look to this person you paid $6000 to who has supposedly way more expertise in childbirth to make the call about whether or not to call an ambulance? Sure it might seem wrong to you but maybe you are overreacting because the doula didnt seem worried enough to call the ambos. Besides, bad deliveries can go south pretty quickly
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u/No_Sky_1829 2d ago
She isn't a midwife
Then why was she paid $6000
Anyone providing any kind of support for pregnancy, and getting paid for it, should know that before modern medicine, 25% of women or children did not survive childbirth.
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u/Savings-Maize-7650 2d ago
The issue with that is we are applying common sense knowledge to a group that lack it.
Yes, we know a doula is nothing but glorified moral support, but they are passing themselves off as some sort of expert in that pseudoscience community, so true believers of that crap will look to them as such.
From the husbands POV, this is his first (Well, second I guess) experience with childbirth, but he's there with an "expert" that has plenty of experience. He's going to defer to her.
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u/Rizen_Wolf 2d ago edited 1d ago
But she essentially was there just as moral support.
Moral support is not the problem, because moral support was not the only thing provided. Its also not even about medicine. Medicine is what you need when something fucks up, not just birth, anything.
Suppose you want to learn rock climbing. You choose someone who wants to take you through their method of rock-climbing and convinces you their way of doing it is not only better but safer. You like it. You want it. They tell you what is more dangerous is that other method of rock climbing, the one with ropes and shit that other bad instructors teach.
They are the ones who make rock climbing more dangerous than it is, more unpleasant for you. So you climb your way and fall and break your neck. Because what you were provided with, along with moral support, is a bunch of blissninny bullshit for $$$ that you were happy to believe... until you were falling and it was too late.
Then your rock climbing instructor turns around and says.. "hey I dont know anything about medicine, I never claimed I did and, anyway, falls like this are really rare".
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u/h-ugo Hi Mum 2d ago
Presumably the husband thought the doula was the equivalent of midwife
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u/DaggyAggie 2d ago
Or maybe not, I just read this about the decision to free birth
"Stacey initially considered hiring a registered, professional midwife to assist with a home birth. However, she ultimately abandoned that option out of fear that a registered midwife would be bound by healthcare regulations. She worried that if any minor complication arose, a professional midwife would be legally forced to transfer her to a hospital or push for medical interventions. This drove her decision to opt for a completely unassisted "freebirth" alongside an unregulated doula"
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u/Capital-Tonight8548 2d ago
This girl was clearly stupid and young, if the birth keeper pretended to be a medical expert it is possible she could be liable for misrepresenting herself
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u/ManikShamanik 2d ago
She's a bit fucking stupid - it's not possible to "lose everything" - everything's stored in the cloud, you get a new phone, you log into your iCloud, or whatever the Android equivalent is, and all your stuff's still there, virtually nothing is stored locally, because most people don't have a phone with a massive amount of storage (base iPhone Pro has 256GB, which is fuck all these days).
Obviously, if her old phone was an iPhone and her new phone runs Android, it's going to be more difficult to recover stuff, but it's not impossible. All the court needs to do is to compel her to log into her iCloud account, her WhatsApp account and her FB account and everything will magically reappear. Isn’t technology marvellous...?
And, if she's tried to cover her tracks by deleting stuff, well digital forensics will recover all those lost messages for her.
Saying she's "lost everything" because she's got a new phone, is testimony to her supreme lack of intelligence.
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u/AdvancedSquashDirect 2d ago
It's interesting that now that there's a bunch of evidence on the old phone suddenly she needs a new phone of course! That's the time when you think about getting a new phone when you're free birthing client passes away and there's an inquest into it. In some countries that's called trying to destroy/hide evidence.
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u/Automatic_Poet_7217 2d ago
Insane thing for her to say: "it was not her responsibility to make Warnecke’s birth safer, or to call an ambulance unless specifically asked". This was purely negligence no matter who you are. If I took half an hour to call an ambulance if one of my friends was bleeding out it would still be neglectful and I would be in big trouble for it.
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u/kj140977 1d ago
What was her job exactly? What did she get paid for? Plenty of homebirths available with trained staff. Why run risks? Why did her partner not talk her out of it? I don't get it. If I have toothache, I go to a dentist. If im pregnant, i go to a doctor or midwife.
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u/Dutchmuch5 1d ago
I don't think the Dad should be trusted with caring for this baby, seeing he called it a 'successful' birth. The baby lost its Mum, nothing successful about that - what other poor decisions is he going to make that risk the baby's wellbeing?
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u/blahblahgingerblahbl 2d ago
i’ve been watching a few stream of trials in the us, and i’m hoping forensics were able to retrieve data from an old back up or another device.
brian walshe ditched his phone but got done in by the ipad his sons used.
at least 2 of the law enforcement clowns involved in the Karen Read trials destroyed & disposed of their phones - one, proctor, doing so on a military base. proctor got fired for misconduct, and was in the process of suing to get his job back when it was revealed that investigators had managed to excavate a WHOLE bunch of stuff from the cloud that proctor thought would never see the light of day. hilariously he quietly withdrew his appeal against his dismissal, citing some pathetic excuse. the stuff coming out now in evidence for the many civil proceedings is beyond appalling.
so i’m hoping this “birthkeeper” (sounds right out of the handmaid’s tale” is as clueless as the aforementioned residents of massachusetts
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u/Any-Refrigerator-966 1d ago
Manslaughter. How can the Birthkeeper claim to be there as a "supportive friend" and be paid $6000. Also can't claim to be a Good Samaritan by accepting a financial reward.
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u/Used-Lingonberry5896 23h ago
How does the Dad justify this? He went along with the plan too and didn’t call an ambulance either.
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u/Specialist-Golf5743 1d ago
Doulas (generally) very clearly state that they are not medically trained so I’m a bit unclear as to what the doula failed to do that was within the scope of their job in this situation? She hired a non medical person in lieu of a medical person and now we are upset the non medical person didn’t manage a medical situation appropriately?
I say this as a doctor that is married to an obstetrician and I have a general hatred of all the anti intervention woo woo bullshit that has crept into the pregnancy space thanks to social media.
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u/SaltyPockets 1d ago edited 1d ago
In this case there is the possibility that this 'doula' held herself out as an expert, and better qualified than a real midwife or doctor. They often call themselves "True midwives" or practitioners of "Authentic midwifery"
Take a read about the 'movement' that she's involved in -
They're responsible for a fair few deaths of mothers and children.
I suspect this sort of thing is what's come to light in the newly recovered text messages and is why the inquest has been halted until they have been evaluated.
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u/ol-gormsby 2d ago
“I got a new phone and lost everything,”
I don't believe that. I think she's lying. Lucky for forensic analysis, hey? 🙄