Wellness influencer died of eminently treatable home birth complication that rarely kills in hospitals
New details are emerging about the death of a 30-year-old Australian wellness influencer.Last year, “low-tox” food content creator Stacey Warnecke (née Hatfield) died suddenly hours after giving birth to her first child.Her husband said it was because of an “unforeseen and extremely rare complication.”Now, an inquest into her death revealed she bled out for over an hour before an ambulance was called, according to The Guardian.
A birthkeeper, an unregulated birth worker who operates outside the medical system, was reportedly paid $6,000 AUS (about $4,200 USD) to be there.“A woman who dies from blood loss … it is eminently treatable if it’s recognized quickly and managed,” forensic pathologist Dr.Michael Burke, who conducted Warnecke’s autopsy, told the court.In the US, about 50,000 women, choose to give birth at home annually.
This accounts for less than 2% of births.Most home births are attended by midwives, who follow state-regulated licensing.At 3 a.m.
on September 29, Warnecke successfully gave birth to a son, Axel, but was bleeding.About 25 mins later, she’d lost up to 1.5 liters of blood, her husband said.Emily Lal, her birthkeeper, asked if she wanted to call an ambulance twice, and Warnecke refused both times.
The third time Lal asked, an hour after she gave birth, Warnecke agreed.A paramedic found Stacey “lying on the floor between the birth pool and the couch,” Rachel Ellyard, a counsel assisting the coroner, said.“The room was dark.
Stacey was naked, her skin was yellow and clammy” and there was a large clot of blood on the ground.Intensive care paramedics couldn’t detect her blood pressure and identified she’d had a postpartum hemorrhage, or excessive bleeding after birth.This happens in 1-5% of births.Two hours after she gave birth, she expelled a “big gush of blood” at the hospital, Ellyard said.
Minutes later, she went into cardiac arrest.The staff continued to try to save her, fighting multiple cardiac arres...