Gold Coast mum slams coroner report after home birth death

A Gold Coast mother who lost her baby in a home birth gone wrong has refused to blame her midwife despite a coroner's report finding she fudged details surrounding the death and had no formal baby CPR skills.

Alanna Goetzinger lost her baby daughter Rana after giving birth by candlelight at her Canungra home in 2012, The Gold Coast Bulletin reports.

The level of care shown by the midwife of 19 years, who has not been named, during the water birth was found to have "fallen significantly short" of the standard expected from someone of her experience, the Australian Health Practitioner’s Regulatory Authority found.

The report, handed down by coroner James McDougall, revealed the midwife allowed Mrs Goetzinger, who had gestational diabetes, to deliver at 41 weeks, putting her at higher risk of meconium aspiration.

Meconium aspiration, which Rana was found to have died from, occurs when meconium — passed from the foetus’s bowel into the amniotic fluid — is inhaled and blocks the airways.

The investigation found the candlelit room did not allow the midwife to see meconium in the birth pool. As a result, Rana was born limp and not breathing.

The midwife performed CPR on Rana while the baby was on Mrs Goetzinger's chest and called an ambulance seven minutes later, the report found.

A separate investigation by the Queensland Ambulance Officers and Gold Coast Hospital discovered the midwife changed the birth time and said there were signs of life when she originally said there was not.

Gold Coast Hospital neonatal paediatrician Dr Pita Birth, who treated Rana on arrival at emergency, said the care provided was "grossly inadequate".

Dr Birch said she was particularly concerned about the midwife's chest resuscitation, the ability to assess Rana in a dark room and the "completely unacceptable" delay in contacting emergency services.

The midwife handed in her registration late last year.

Mrs Goetzinger rejected the findings, describing the report as "offensive" not only to the midwife but to herself, as she feels she has been criticised for her choice to give birth at home.

She said her waters broke just before the birth and the meconium would have been present days earlier than the report stated as Rana was stained with it.

"This has taken three years and not once in that time did they ask for my opinion," Mrs Goetzinger said.

Source: Gold Coast Bulletin