BUDAPEST, Hungary - An obstetrician considered the main advocate for home births in Hungary was sentenced Thursday to two years in prison for malpractice, just weeks after the government decided to regulate the activity.
Agnes Gereb was found guilty of medical negligence in two separate home births, including one in which the baby died. She will have to spend at least a year behind bars before parole and was also banned from practicing both as an obstetrician and a midwife for five years.
Lawyers representing Gereb and several other midwives charged in connection with four home births that occurred between 2003 and 2007, said they had appealed the decision of the Budapest City Court.
"We don't expect the appeal to be heard before autumn," said lawyer Tamas Fazekas.
The verdict in Gereb's case was unusual because the judge's sentence was much tougher than the suspended prison term originally sought by the prosecution.
Nonetheless, prosecutors also appealed the ruling, asking for Gereb's professional bans to be extended and for the court to eliminate the possibility of her parole, Fazekas said. Another midwife was fined 300,000 forints (€1,125, $1,600) while three others were acquitted.
Gereb's litigation became a rallying point for Hungarians seeking to accept home births as a regulated method of delivery.
Earlier this month, the government said home births will be allowed from May 1, but only under strict safety conditions.
Until now, women in Hungary had the right to give birth at home, but medical professionals were banned from assisting planned home births.
Last week, during the final stages of the trial, Gereb and her colleagues appealed for clemency to President Pal Schmitt, but he had not yet seen the request, a presidency official told state news wire MTI late Thursday.
A group of Hungarian midwives criticized the ruling against Gereb, saying the court applied different standards to home births from those used in deliveries at a hospital.
"In civilized countries, midwives answer for their work to professional associations, not courts," said a statement from the Birth Home Association. "They are judged not solely by experts who have experience only in hospital births, but by professionals who know about home births."
Fazekas said Gereb would remain under house arrest until the appeal is heard because she is also under investigation by Budapest police in other cases of complications in home births. Because of a similar case in 2007, Gereb was already given a three-year ban from exercising her profession.
Gereb's advocacy and her determination to assist with thousands of home births over the years has received plenty of media attention in Hungary, with public opinion about her deeply split.
She was recently voted one of Hungary's "Women of the Decade" in a popular women's weekly and several prominent doctors and midwives from Britain and the United States appealed last year for Gereb's release to the Hungarian government and parliament.