A birthkeeper who allegedly “groomed” pregnant women to fear hospital could be referred to prosecutors to face potential criminal charges, a Victorian coroner has heard.
Stacey Warnecke died in September ۲۰۲۵ at Frankston hospital in Melbourne after giving birth at home and suffering a postpartum haemorrhage with birthkeeper Emily Lal by her side, having paid her $۶,۰۰۰ to support her throughout pregnancy.
Birthkeepers have no clinical training and operate outside the medical system.
The inquest into Warnecke’s death began in June, but closing submissions to coroner Therese McCarthy were delayed after a forensic analysis of Warnecke’s phone.
Hearings resumed on Monday, when Rachel Ellyard, in her role as counsel assisting the coroner, said that the completed analysis had revealed numerous messages, including in a group chat on the platform WhatsApp coordinated by Lal for women who were choosing freebirth. A phone call between Warnecke, a ۳۰-year-old nutritionist and wellness influencer, and Lal was played to the court.
Ellyard said the phone evidence directly contradicted evidence from Lal, given in June, that she was hired by Warnecke primarily to play the role of a supportive friend, and that the money paid to her was primarily for her time, but not for medical advice.
“Ms Lal saw her role as to groom her clients into being strong enough to resist the temptation to seek medical help during labor, to seek pain relief during labor, to go to hospital during labor,” Ellyard said.
“It’s clear that Ms Lal thought that in most cases, going to hospital would represent a failure of someone who hadn’t done the work, who hadn’t understood enough what the intensity of labor was going to be.”
During the call, Warnecke told Lal that she envisioned having a “wise woman” next to her during her first childbirth, to guide her when asking: “Am I dying, or am I alright?”
Warnecke told Lal she was afraid of the hospital.
Lal responded: “You should be scared of the hospital.”
“It’s a terrifying place. For me personally, I think the biggest, the key … to actually staying home and having your baby … is that your mindset and your condition needs to be so solid.”
Lal also told Warnecke that midwives who attend home births sometimes inadvertently sabotage them, because if the birth goes on too long, they tell the woman to go to hospital. This is sometimes just because the midwife is exhausted, Lal said.
She told Warnecke: “I manage my own energy as much as I can in that way, so that I don’t subconsciously sabotage a person.”
Lal previously told the court that she was not clinically trained, and that it was not her responsibility to make Warnecke’s birth safer, or to call an ambulance unless specifically asked. Lal said she never gave Warnecke medical advice, and only shared her own experiences of freebirthing her own children.
Ellyard said on Monday that given the evidence from the call and many messages and documents obtained from Warnecke’s phone, “the role that Stacey thought Ms Lal would play during the freebirth … was to help her by keeping her safe”.
“Stacey was placing considerable reliance on Ms Lal, in whom she had placed considerable trust.
“Ms Lal was an expert. She was providing advice. She was providing referrals. She was selling supplements. She was offering commentary.
“This is all quite inconsistent with the idea of just being a friend who pulls your hair back and wipes your forehead. It’s something much more structured, much more deliberate.”
Ellyard said Warnecke’s husband, Nathan, had also been “reassured or indoctrinated into a sense that his role was just to just sit back and support, and that whatever Stacey experienced was alright”.
Lal was invited to return to court to give further evidence after the phone analysis, but had declined to, the court heard.
Lal only gave evidence previously on the condition that the Coroner grant her a certificate of protection so that her evidence could not be used against her in any future proceedings.
Ellyard put to the Coroner on Monday that it would be open to her to find that Lal had committed purgery “in relation to the falsity of the evidence” and to refer her to the Office of Public Prosecutions [OPP].
The OPP prepares and conducts criminal matters on behalf of the director.
“Having regard to the materials that have now become available … it would be open to your honour to form the view that Ms Lal wasn’t truthful in the evidence that she gave to you, and that a referral could be made in relation to the offence of perjury,” Ellyard said.
She said there was also evidence Lal had been “holding herself out as someone capable of giving such expert advice and capable of meeting the needs of pregnant women in a range of circumstances” despite having no authority.
The court previously heard that Lal had asked Warnecke three times whether she wanted an ambulance called after she gave birth to the placenta, lost up to ۱.۵ litres of blood, then began struggling to breathe.
Lal previously told the court that it was not her role to call an ambulance against her client’s wishes, even if the woman was unconscious and dying.
Warnecke said yes to an ambulance the third time, but by the time paramedics arrived she was seriously unwell, having suffered a massive postpartum haemorrhage.
Warnecke died in hospital several hours later from related complications, with the hospital exhausting its blood supply trying to save her.
Ellyard said on Monday: “Stacey would have survived if she was in hospital”.
Midwives and doctors know that postpartum haemorrhage is the most common complication of childbirth and are so well trained to identify it and treat it that “women do not die in hospital” from it in well-resourced countries, Ellyard said.
Warnecke also “would have survived if she was giving birth at home with a registered midwife,” Ellyard said, drawing from evidence given by medical professionals earlier in the inquest.
“She suffered a known complication of childbirth, which was eminently treatable if identified and responded to immediately.”
The coroner will deliver her findings at a later date.
