Our society puts an incredible amount of pressure on new mothers . We expect them to be happy, healthy, and utterly obsessed with the joys of motherhood .
However, a vast majority of mothers are forced to struggle in silence with postpartum depression. Below is a list of celebrities who are speaking up about PPD in an attempt to end the stigma.
Adele
Most people think that postpartum depression means mothers don’t want to be around their children. “But I was obsessed with my child,” Adele explained to Vanity Fair . “I felt very inadequate ; I felt like I’d made the worst decision of my life.”
Gwyneth Paltrow
During an episode of the Goop podcast, Gwyneth said that when her daughter Apple was born — she was filled with joy. However, when her son Moses came into the world, Paltrow said that she felt nothing and was in a dark place for months.
Alanis Morissette
Alanis explained in a personal essay that before she gave birth to her third child, she had a postpartum plan.
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“But for all this preparation, PPD is still a sneaky monkey with a machete — working its way through my psyche and body and days and thoughts and bloodwork levels.”
Drew Barrymore
Drew explained to People that she didn’t have postpartum after her first pregnancy. “The second time, I was like, ‘Oh, whoa, I see what people talk about now. I understand ‘. It’s a different type of overwhelming with the second. I really got under the cloud.”
Amanda Peet
In the beginning, Amanda couldn’t wait to become a mom and expected to feel nothing but love and happiness for her child. Instead, she wound up completely sleep-deprived and feeling ambivalent at best when it came to being a mother.
Hayden Panettiere
Hayden spoke about her PPD on Good Morning America , She said “I think I’m all the stronger for it. You don’t feel like yourself, [but] women are so resilient—and that’s the incredible thing about them.”
Bryce Dallas Howard
Bryce only came to realize that she was experiencing postpartum symptoms after reading Brooke Shields’ book “Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression.”
“I didn’t realize that what I was experiencing was postpartum depression; I called it ‘ postpartum denial ,'” she told E! News .
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah is all too familiar with the pains of postpartum depression. The star wrote a candid Instagram post dedicated to all mothers going through the motions:
“To those of you going through this, know that you’re not alone and that it really does get better.”
Behati Prinsloo
“I think I got lucky not to have it to an extreme case, but you can see yourself spiraling,” Behati told USA Today . “I think it’s very normal , though, as a young mom and a new mom to feel helpless and to feel overly emotional, you know.”
Jessica Simpson
When Jessica was pregnant with her third child, she gained 100 pounds . Six months after giving birth, she was praised for snapping back to her normal weight. The former pop singer was quick to point out that her weight loss was a journey — not a snap back.
Cardi B
Before Cardi gave birth, she thought that six weeks of recovery time would be all that she needed before hitting the road. She quickly came to realize that not only did she need more time to recover physically but also mentally as well.
Courtney Cox
According to an interview that Courteney gave to USA Today , her postpartum didn’t hit until roughly six months after her daughter was born. She said that her heart wouldn’t stop racing and that she fell into a deep depression.
Reese Witherspoon
Reese made an appearance on the I Weigh podcast and said that “After each child I had a different experience. One kid I had kind of mild postpartum , and one kid I had severe postpartum where I had to take pretty heavy medication because I just wasn’t thinking straight at all.”
Brooke Shields
Brooke Shields was one of the first female celebrities to shine a light on the realities of postpartum depression back in the early 00s. She wrote a book about her experiences titled “Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression.”
Chrissy Teigen
Chrissy wrote an essay for Glamour on the topic of postpartum, where she said “How can I feel this way when everything is so great? I’ve had a hard time coming to terms with that, and I hesitated to even talk about this.”