Brooke Shields Shares Postnatal Depression Struggles On Podcast
Brooke Shields had a candid discussion about her struggles with postnatal depression on the WTF podcast with Marc Maron. Shining a light on the challenges that many new mothers face when adjusting to motherhood, the actress revealed that after giving birth to her first daughter, Rowan, she was so depressed that she considered driving into a wall to end her life.
According to the Pretty Baby star, her daughter felt like a stranger to her for a long time, and she didn’t know what to do with the baby. Explaining that she had gone through IVF seven times before getting pregnant with Rowan, she revealed that the childbirth experience was traumatic and that she lost a lot of blood and herniated her uterus. All the things that went wrong left her feeling depleted and biochemically imbalanced, she said.
“I lost so much blood when I gave birth to her and herniated my uterus. It was just everything that could have gone wrong. I thought I was going to die. They were going to give me a hysterectomy,” she stated.
Despite calling her doctor for help, Brooke said that her symptoms were initially dismissed as “the baby blues.” It was not until the doctor consulted with his wife, a doula, that she was diagnosed with postnatal depression and prescribed medication.
“The doctor called me back and he said “I apologise for violating the patient-doctor privilege. I talked to my wife, who is a doula (offering emotional support through pregnancy and after birth), about it, and she thinks that you are experiencing post-partum (post-natal) depression and would you take medication?” she recounted.
The medication came with another challenge of its own as the Blue Lagoon star initially refused to take them, but eventually she agreed after pressure from her loved ones.
Brooke credited her husband, Chris Henchy, with filling the parenting void caused by her depression. However, she also expressed guilt for putting that responsibility on him, as he had never held a baby before but quickly adapted to the role.
Shields also discussed her public feud with Tom Cruise, who criticized her for taking an antidepressant drug, Paxil. Shields responded by telling him to “stick to fighting aliens,” referencing the belief among Scientologists that space alien parasites live inside all of us and must be destroyed. Cruise later apologized to Shields for his comments and things seemed pretty calm between the two later.
