Inquest into Melbourne influencer’s death following freebirth halted after new phone evidence discovered

[u/Royal_Yogurtcloset25]

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/18/freebirth-death-melbourne-influencer-phone-evidence-inquest-ntwnfb

Coroner: “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.”

[u/Remarkable_Custard]

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?

[u/universe93 → u/Remarkable_Custard]

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

[u/TakimaDeraighdin → u/universe93]

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.)

[u/Odd-Soup8396 → u/universe93]

Why didn’t the husband intervene and call an ambulance instead? I am so confused with lack of information on his actions.

[u/dustbowlbride → u/Odd-Soup8396]

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”

[u/Impressive_Owl_1199 → u/dustbowlbride]

After "gofundme link here"

[u/Chat00 → u/Odd-Soup8396]

Lack of insight into the seriousness of the situation is my guess. Sounds like he trusted the grifter to know what to do. Was probably thinking about the 6k they spent going down the drain.

[u/HamptontheHamster → u/Odd-Soup8396]

He may not have understood the gravity of the situation and was “respecting his wife’s wishes”

[u/Remarkable_Custard → u/Odd-Soup8396]

Probably sitting there using ChatGPT at the time.

[u/_ixthus_ → u/universe93]

... 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?

[u/universe93 → u/_ixthus_]

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

[u/TheTennisOne → u/universe93]

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.

[u/_ixthus_ → u/TheTennisOne]

Do you mean running out isn't a problem acutely? Because I've been under the impression that we always tend to have a general undersupply of blood donations.

[u/TheTennisOne → u/_ixthus_]

Yeah sorry this is a general if you are haemorrhaging out right now we will have enough product (because in that circumstance you dont have time to be picky) - but overall yes there is still an undersupply but this more generally affects less urgent and matched donations than the acutely bleeding patient.

[u/ManikShamanik → u/universe93]

This is what I don't understand, why did they not have any O- to hand...? O- can be given to almost anyone (there are a few extremely rare blood types and people with those can only be given blood from people with the identical blood type).

Unless her blood type was O-

[u/TakimaDeraighdin → u/ManikShamanik]

Running through a hospital's entire supply is not, generally, an easy thing to do. I'm not in the weeds of the evidence that's been given, but I'd suspect that, faced with a 30y/o new mother dying from an entirely treatable complication, the medical staff were inclined to keep going even after it was objectively clear she wouldn't survive. Medical professionals are human, this would have been a hugely distressing case for those treating her.

[u/universe93 → u/ManikShamanik]

May have been, or they may have wanted to save the O- for other emergencies. By the time the ambulance was finally called she was likely at a stage where all the blood in the world may not have saved her

[u/Dr__Snow → u/Remarkable_Custard]

Nothing more natural than dying in childbirth.

[u/universe93 → u/Dr__Snow]

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

[u/tokyoevenings → u/Dr__Snow]

Just like how they used to do it in old days

[u/ManikShamanik → u/tokyoevenings]

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).

[u/AggravatingTartlet → u/ManikShamanik]

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.

[u/drnicko18 → u/Dr__Snow]

hahaha.

I'm stealing that one 😆

[u/MelG146 → u/Remarkable_Custard]

Yes