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An obstetrician considered the main advocate for home births in Hungary has been sentenced 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 spend at least a year behind bars before parole and was also banned from practising 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 against 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 against 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 (£989) 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 would be allowed from 1 May, 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 Hungary's president, Pal Schmitt, but he had not yet seen the request, a presidency official told state news wire MTI on Thursday.

A group of Hungarian midwives criticised the ruling against Gereb, saying the court applied different standards to home births from those used in deliveries at a hospital.

"In civilised countries, midwives answer for their work to professional associations, not courts," the Birth Home Association said. "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 for other cases of complications in home births.

Gereb had already been given a three-year ban because of a similar case in 2007.

Her determination to assist with thousands of home births has received plenty of media attention in Hungary, with public opinion deeply split. She was voted one of Hungary's Women of the Decade in a women's weekly and last year several prominent doctors and midwives from Britain and the US appealed to the Hungarian government for her release.