The serene facade of natural childbirth advocacy shattered in a Wallsend courtroom as Oyebola Coxon, a Nigerian-born influencer midwife known online as “Mamma Informata,” faced manslaughter charges for her role in a home birth tragedy that claimed a newborn’s life.
The 36-year-old’s arrest on August 14 culminated a police investigation into the October incident where she allegedly ignored clear danger signs during a protracted two-day labor, disregarding the mother’s desperate pleas for hospital transfer in favor of her rigid natural birth ideology.
According to court documents and police reports, Coxon attended the delivery at a private residence where she allegedly dismissed mounting evidence of complications, allowing the labor to continue dangerously beyond reasonable limits.
When the distressed mother finally reached John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle, medical staff performed an emergency cesarean section, but the intervention came too late—the baby boy survived just eight days in neonatal intensive care before succumbing to injuries sustained during the problematic delivery, while the mother herself suffered significant medical complications.
The case exposes the dark underbelly of the unregulated birth influencer industry, where Coxon built her “Mamma Informata” Instagram platform promoting radical anti-medical views.
Her content regularly dismissed gestational diabetes as nonexistent, characterized standard prenatal blood tests and ultrasounds as unnecessary interventions, and encouraged women to resist doctors’ advice in favor of purely “natural” approaches. Through paid online courses targeting expectant mothers, she monetized this dangerous ideology that now stands implicated in a child’s death.
The Newcastle Crown Court will hear starting October 15 how Coxon’s alleged negligence crossed from controversial advice into criminal territory, with charges of both manslaughter and grievous bodily harm reflecting the severity of the outcomes.
Her bail conditions—prohibiting any practice or education related to pregnancy and birth—acknowledge the ongoing danger her teachings pose to vulnerable expectant mothers seduced by romanticized visions of intervention-free childbirth.
This case serves as a grim reminder that when ideological purity overrides medical reality, the consequences can be measured in the most heartbreaking of currencies—a life ended before it truly began.
