‘After giving birth, it felt like I was being punished’

PIC/YOUTUBE/Jay Shetty Fan Channel

Postpartum mental health issues don't look like one thing; depression, detachment, anxious over-attachment - it's all this and everything in between.

In the case of actor Hayden Panettiere's death, while many have been discussing the pressure and exploitation she faced while living under the spotlight, what has gotten caught the attention of most is a podcast where she is talking about her experience with postpartum depression.

Talking to British podcaster Jay Shetty in May, Panettiere alleged that skincare brand Neutrogena had dropped her as a client in 2015 after she spoke out about going through postpartum depression and the alcohol addiction that followed. The 36-year-old also confessed that she had given custody of her daughter to the biological father because she wanted to get better in order to take care of her.

Shreya Mitra, who went through depression and is now helping other mothers

At the same time, the world is seeing the case of Lindsay Clancy, a nurse who has admitted that she killed her daughter and two sons in Massachusetts, US. Clancy's lawyer has repeatedly stated that she was undergoing postpartum psychosis and had reached out for help multiple times, but the mental health care system failed in helping.

We speak to two mothers who tell us that it is sheer luck they have survived, and that postpartum depression has changed their brain chemistry forever.

Shreya Mitra suffered a brain haemorrhage after giving birth to her son Shaan on December 1, 2016. "I had severe postpartum depression after he was born. I also had a brain haemorrhage. It was a very stressful pregnancy, so I had severe postpartum depression; I could not bond with my child," she recalls. Days after his birth, "I had to leave him with my in-laws - my mom was undergoing treatment for cancer - and I had to go to Chennai to pretty much save my life. [At the time] I didn't know if I would be coming back. I did, but I was away from him for 12 days. It just felt like God was punishing me. That was one of the earliest symptoms, but I didn't know that then," she adds.

Payal Phayde who went through postpartum anxiety

When Mitra came back, anxiety attacks followed. "It's not like I wanted to escape my life, but I didn't want to live anymore. I had crazy anger issues, severe palpitation, and my blood pressure would drop," she says.

Mitra went through a series of tests to determine what was wrong with her. "They told me I was too young to have postpartum depression. This continued for eight months, one doctor after another. My husband would keep saying, something in me had changed after Shaan was born, and I knew I was not myself," she says.

Then, a neurologist told her, "it is depression, it happens", and it was like someone had switched on the light. "I can't tell you how alone I felt on that journey, and that's when I decided that what happened to me, shouldn't happen to anyone else," says Mitra. It was then that Mitra she started a series on Instagram (@raising_shaan), where she speaks to other mothers, doctors, and therapists, "It brought me purpose and also helped with my depression." Today, her handle is followed by almost 90,000 mothers across the country.

Payal Phayde had her daughter in 2023. A photographer by vocation, Phayde says she had postpartum anxiety. "I didn't want to leave my baby alone. I felt that no one could take care of her like I did. I was unreasonable and would snap at people without a thought," she says. Phayde recounts that when a family member picked up her daughter while wearing glass bangles, she "shot a two-pager WhatsApp message to my father that he should tell the relative to not come and meet my daughter while wearing bangles that could hurt the newborn".

Phayde, a resident of Bengaluru, says that any help offered felt like judgement. "When I would feed my baby, and if the baby cried, my dad would come and take her, telling me to rest, I felt like he was saying, ‘I know better than you'. I felt judged," she recalls. Phayde went to therapy as soon as she could and found validation there. Not every mother though feels as supported. One jumped out of a running auto rickshaw because she thought the driver was going to harm her baby," says Phayde.

Rather than firing women for talking about postpartum mental health, or gaslighting them into thinking they are overreacting or "bad mothers", the need of the hour is to build mental health into postpartum care at hospitals. "We need every hospital to follow the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, where every two weeks, the hospital does a mental health follow-up with the mom," says Mitra.

13% of women who have just given birth experience a mental disorder, primarily depression
Source: WHO