HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Gwyneth Paltrow is opening up about her struggle with postpartum depression following the birth of her son, Moses, in 2006.
"I expected to have another period of euphoria following his birth, much the way I had when my daughter was born two years earlier," Paltrow writes in her latest GOOP newsletter. "Instead I was confronted with one of the darkest and most painfully debilitating chapters of my life."
"For about five months I had, what I can see in hindsight as postnatal depression," she adds.
Paltrow says has since wanted to know more about the condition, which affects about 10 percent of new mothers and can occur within the first few weeks after delivery and even up to a year, according to Dr. Laura Schiller, a New York city-based OB/GYN.
Fellow actress Bryce Dallas Howard also experienced postpartum depression after the birth of her son, Theo, in February 2007.
"It is strange for me to recall what I was like at that time, the Twilight star shares in the newsletter. "I seemed to be suffering emotional amnesia. I couldn't genuinely cry, or laugh, or be moved by anything. For the sake of those around me, including my son, I pretended, but when I began showering again in the second week [after giving birth], I let loose in the privacy of the bathroom, water flowing over me as I heaved uncontrollable sobs."
"Despite my daily 'shower breakdowns' months passed before I even began to acknowledge my true feelings," she continues. "Before Theo was born, I had been in good humor about my 80-pound weight gain, but I was now mortified by it. I felt I was failing at breast-feeding. My house was a mess. I believed I was a terrible dog owner. I was certain I was an awful actress; I dreaded a film I was scheduled to shoot only a few weeks after the birth because I could barely focus enough to read the script. And worst of all, I definitely felt I was a rotten mother—not a bad one, a rotten one. Because the truth was, every time I looked at my son, I wanted to disappear."
With the encouragement of her friends and family, Howard says she eventually sought the help she needed.
"Post-partum depression is hard to describe—the way the body and mind and spirit fracture and crumble in the wake of what most believe should be a celebratory time," she says. "Do I wish I had never endured post-partum depression? Absolutely. But to deny the experience is to deny who I am. I still mourn the loss of what could have been, but I also feel deep gratitude for those who stood by me, for the lesson that we must never be afraid to ask for help."
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