Clinician reported birthkeeper to police the day Melbourne wellness influencer died following freebirth

Australian wellness influencer Stacey Warnecke and her husband Nathan Warnecke. Photograph: GoFundMe View image in fullscreen Australian wellness influencer Stacey Warnecke and her husband Nathan Warnecke. Photograph: GoFundMe Clinician reported birthkeeper to police the day Melbourne wellness influencer died following freebirth Inquest hears clinician was not legally required to report to police but was concerned about public health and safety Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast A senior clinician reported a birthkeeper to police the same day one of her clients died after giving birth at home – something the senior clinician said he had not done before. The evidence was heard during the third day of the inquest into the death of 30-year-old wellness influencer Stacey Warnecke, who died on 29 September in Frankston hospital in Melbourne. She had paid Emily Lal $6,000 to support her to have a freebirth at home without any clinically trained staff involved. Lal described her role at the time as a “birthkeeper”. Birthkeepers have no medical training and operate outside the medical system, and do not believe in the involvement of trained clinical staff throughout pregnancy. Birthkeeper hired by woman who died after freebirth tells inquest she was ‘not there to make a birth safer’ Read more Lal on Tuesday told the inquest that her role was not a medical one, nor was it to keep Warnecke safe. Rather, she was acting primarily as a friend when she was hired and attended Warnecke’s birth at home, Lal said. She also said it was not her role to call an ambulance unless specifically asked to by any mother she was hired by. Warnecke gave birth to her son shortly after 3am, and to the placenta about 20-25 minutes after that, when she suffered a bleed. At this point she said she needed to lie down, the court heard earlier. She became short of breath and panicked, and Lal told her she might be suffering from a panic attack, the inquest heard. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email She had in fact suffered a massive postpartum haemorrhage, which Frankston hospital’s director of obstetrics and gynaecology, Nisha Khot, told the inquest on Wednesday was treatable and was “very rare” for women to die from when they give birth in hospital, or with a midwife present at a home birth. After a period of struggling to breathe, Warnecke told Lal “I’m bleeding”, but Lal looked between her legs and told her she wasn’t bleeding any more, the inquest heard. Khot described how internal bleeding can occur following a haemorrhage and that visible blood is just one of many signs of haemorrhage clinicians are trained to look for. The executive director of medical services and clinical governance at Bayside Health Peninsula, associate professor Shyaman Menon, described the efforts of clinical staff as they tried to save Warnecke’s life. By the time Warnecke arrived at hospital approximately two hou