How home birth coach who charged $6,000 to woman who bled to death during childbirth warned pregnant mums away from hospitals and midwives

By CANDACE SUTTON, SENIOR NEWS REPORTER, AUSTRALIA Published: 15:06, 24 June 2026 | Updated: 15:13, 24 June 2026 A freebirth coach who charged $6,000 to a young mum who bled to death during childbirth warned paying clients off 'the modern industrial birth system' and snubbed doctors. Marketing herself as The Authentic Birth Keeper, Emily Lal only closed down her business last year after influencer Stacey Warnecke lay dying in front of her in September 2025 as Lal resisted dialling Triple-0. Lal, who had no training beyond two online freebirth courses, had previously hired out a birthing pool to a couple whose baby daughter turned blue and died after being born in the pool in December 2022. Victorian Coroner Catherine Fitzgerald determined that Baby E's cause of death was partly 'prolonged labour in a home birthing pool', which Lal arrived to collect just as the newborn was pronounced dead. This week, Emily Lal testified before a different coroner investigating the death of 30-year-old Warnecke, whose death was deemed preventable, on the floor of her Seaford home in Melbourne in September last year. The wellness influencer lost up to 1.5 litres of blood after giving birth in a hired pool to her first child, son Axel, who survived. The inquest heard this week that Stacey had turned yellow and clammy, but because she had not asked for an ambulance as she lay gasping for breath, Lal did not intervene. 'Her autonomy was very important to her,' Lal told the inquest. 'There was no way I was going to call an ambulance against her wishes, like I was not going to do that.' Wellness influencer Stacey Warnecke died from blood loss after a 'freebirth' with Emily Lal, who watched her bleed and lose consciousness on the living room floor following a pregnancy without medical intervention, a practice Lal advocated for and preferred over hospital care  Baby Axel, pictured above with his father Nathan Warnecke, survived, but his mother died from blood loss in what her post-mortem found was a totally preventable death  'Birth Keeper' Emily Lal, who charged $6,000 to a young mum who later bled to death during childbirth, warned paying clients off 'the modern industrial birth system' and sneered at doctors and midwives When Lal asked a weakened Stacey, whom she noted was 'less coherent' and losing consciousness, for a third time whether she wanted an ambulance, the stricken woman replied 'a little bit'. Lal insisted: 'I need you to tell me yes or no. She said "yes" and then we called.' But it was too late. Stacey died at Frankston Hospital from cardiac arrest, likely caused by exsanguination, or bleeding out. THE BIRTH COACH WHO REJECTED HOSPITALS  Lal, is on record lambasting doctors, hospitals and the medical system for their role in childbirth. In scathing online posts and podcast comments about the 'patriarchal system' of medically supervised childbirth, she rails against intervention and calls caesareans ‘unecessarian’, saying 'our bodies are designed to give birth, designed to survive birth'. In a post on one of her social media accounts promoting her business before it shut down, Lal said women could not make informed decisions when giving birth with the help of doctors, nurses and professional midwives. 'Because there is an inherent power imbalance between a birthing woman and her "medical professional" care providers who clearly know what's best for her better than she does. Stacey Warnecke and her husband Nathan are pictured while she was pregnant with their baby son, a journey that ended in tragedy when she died from postpartum haemorrhage 'in the setting of a freebirth'  Emily Lal says warning expectant mothers about the risks of childbirth is playing 'the dead baby card', which she deems 'coercion' by the 'patriarchal system' of childbirth  'When you're being told the one thing they want to tell you - that is coercion.' Lal said medical professionals would warn birthing mothers about the dangers of their babies not surviving if they did not undergo an intervention, which she called 'the dead baby card', saying it is coercion. LAL CLAIMS SHE ONLY ATTENDED STACEY'S BIRTH AS A FRIEND Under questioning by counsel assisting Stacey's inquest, Rachel Ellyard, Lal repeated that she was at the birth only as a friend. But Ms Ellyard produced pages from Lal's since-deleted birth keeper websites and referred to podcasts that showed her 'speaking out in quite an authoritative tone'. Pages uncovered by the online tool The Wayback Machine revealed that Lal had advertised her 'birth keeper full service package', the cost of which rose from $4,000 in 2023 to $6,000 by 2025, with a list of products and services, the inquest heard. 'All of your packages included antenatal support, birth attendance, and postpartum support, and part of that was some antenatal sessions covering a number of topics,' Ms Ellyard said. 'Education on birth physiology, the variations of normal, complications and emergencies and what women could do in those situations. 'What about if you could see, perhaps in a way that the mother in the immediate aftermath of the birth ... really did need medical assessment. Emily Lal had advertised her 'birth keeper full service package' - the cost of which rose from $4,000 in 2023 to $6,000 by 2025  Baby E turned blue and died after being born in a birthing pool (pictured above, a similar pool) rented out to the infant's parents by Birth Keeper Emily Lal  'To what extent did you regard yourself as having some kind of obligation perhaps to act in her interests rather than in response to her wishes?' Lal responded: 'It's up to the family to make that decision. It's not up to me to make that decision for them.' Asked what would happen if one of the women who engaged her for the $6,000 full-service package changed her mind at the last minute and wanted a midwife or a hospital birth, Lal admitted she would not attend the birth. Pressed on why, Lal said she didn't want to 'put myself in a position where I would be witnessing trauma'. Pressed on what kind of trauma she was referring to, Ms Ellyard asked: 'What kind of trauma?' Lal replied: 'Obstetric violence.'  Asked what she meant by that, such as testing or assistance with drugs to improve pre-birth dilation, Lal was vague, saying 'where I might witness something that was going to traumatise me'. On a podcast referred to at the inquest, Lal previously stated that she was 'really biased against the current maternity system'. 'It’s set up in a way that takes away our autonomy. I feel like that’s intentional because it creates return customers.' Stacey lay 'struggling for breath', was yellow and clammy, and was lying in the dark when a paramedic arrived and quickly called for backup from a mobile intensive care unit, but she later died in hospital  Ms Ellyard told the inquest that The Wayback Machine had uncovered the financial side of the business and asked the freebirth advocate how many women she saw as The Authentic Birth Keeper. Lal, who has four children with her husband, Jay, a merchandise planner at Bunnings in Melbourne, said she typically saw five mothers a week. Asked by Ms Ellyard, 'What does a freebirther do?', Lal answered that she gave 'emotional and physical support for pregnancy and birth', as well as doing 'cooking, cleaning and childcare'. During the birth, she made sure the mother had water, tied up 'her hair out of the way', sponged her forehead with a 'cool washcloth', provided some education around pregnancy, and acted as 'a sounding board'. However, on one podcast, Lal came across as more authoritative, saying 'women are hiring me for my knowledge of natural childbirth'. She was also quoted online as saying '99 per cent of birth is mindset. There's nothing physically you need to do to birth your baby' INSIDE'S STACEY'S FINAL MOMENTS  The inquest heard that when a paramedic arrived at Stacey's house at 4.23am, she found 'Stacey lying on the floor between the birth pool and the couch'. 'The room was dark. Stacey was naked, her skin was yellow and clammy.' Stacey Warnecke and her husband Nathan were expecting their first child in September last year when they underwent a 'freebirth' with Emily Lal that ended with Stacey dying from blood loss and her baby son Axel being left motherless  The paramedic quickly called for backup from a mobile intensive care unit. Stacey was also short of breath, breathing rapidly, appeared to be in an altered state of consciousness, and there was a large blood clot on the floor. On the Triple-0 call, made by Stacey's husband Nathan, Lal can be heard instructing Nathan on how to cut the umbilical cord, while baby Axel cried and Stacey was 'struggling for breath'. Asking Lal about that call, which she had taken over from Nathan, Ms Ellyard said that 'a few minutes in, you answered some questions about the bleeding and ... I think ultimately we hear you say, "The bleeding's stopped."' Lal told the inquest that she had elaborated further to the emergency operator by saying, 'Well, she's just had a baby, she is bleeding', but that she hadn't seen Stacey 'gushing' blood. 'I just want to understand it,' Ms Ellyard responded to Lal, 'because a short time later, when you do say there's a concern that the breathlessness might be linked to blood loss ... it sounds like you were aware that there can be a connection between blood loss and breathlessness?' Lal replied: 'Well, if you don't have any blood in your body, it's kind of hard for oxygen to get around'. Asked about her previous experience as a freebirth coach of women becoming breathless after blood loss, Lal said she knew of two cases and they had gone to hospital for blood transfusions. Emily Lal, a mother of four, pulled down her Authentic Birth Keeper website after Stacey Warnecke's death  THE DESPERATE FIGHT TO SAVE STACEY Stacey was transfused in hospital in what Ms Ellyard described as hospital workers' 'heroic' efforts to manage the young woman's multiple cardiac arrests. Specialists decided the first-time mother would require a hysterectomy and a procedure to drain fluid from her heart. Her care required the use of the entire blood supply at the hospital, with additional supplies called in. As staff worked on her, Lal provided them with details of the birth, making them suspicious that her role was more than just that of the 'friend' she had told them she was, Ms Ellyard said. After surgery, Stacey suffered a further cardiac arrest and died shortly after 11am. The forensic pathologist who conducted Stacey’s autopsy, Dr Michael Burke, told the coroner that he listed the cause of death as postpartum haemorrhage 'in the setting of a freebirth'. He said it was 'rare' for women to die from this when they give birth in a medical setting. A birthing pool like the one Emily Lal rented out to the mother of Baby E, who died in December 2022, partly as a result of 'prolonged labour in a home birthing pool', according to a coroner  'A woman who dies from blood loss … it is eminently treatable if it’s recognised quickly and managed,' he told the inquest. Lal originally declined to provide a statement, making a formal objection to giving evidence on the grounds of self-incrimination. Coroner Therese McCarthy granted her immunity against her evidence being used against her. The court heard Lal had declined to speak to police ahead of the inquest, and that when officers attended the scene the following day, the house had been 'extensively cleaned by Ms Lal'. Lal has defended her reasons for cleaning up after the birth and refusing to cooperate with police. 'I thought I was doing something nice by cleaning it up for [her husband],' Lal said. Lal said she refused to cooperate with police because she feared a media pile-on. Lal said the last time she came under scrutiny in the Coroners Court was for renting out the birth pool to the mother of Baby E, who died in 2022. 'The last time I did, it was a birth that had absolutely nothing to do with me, and somehow it ends up with every media report saying that the baby's death was my fault,' she said. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? 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