Gwyneth Paltrow: I Suffered From Postpartum Depression

Gwyneth Paltrow, in an interview on The Conversation With Amanda de Cadenet, admitted that it wasn’t until husband Chris Martin brought her behavior to her attention that she realized she suffered from postpartum, or post-natal depression.

The Oscar-winning actress informed viewers that following the birth of son Moses in April 2006:

“I couldn’t connect with my son the way that I had with my daughter and I couldn’t understand why. I couldn’t connect to anyone. I felt like a zombie. I felt very detached. I just didn’t know what was wrong with me. I couldn’t figure it out. It never occurred to me.”

She said that one day Martin, frontman for band Coldplay, finally told her, “Something’s wrong. I think you have postnatal depression.” At first Paltrow flatly denied it, but the looking back at the symptoms, and how she was acting, she finally admitted she was having problems.

Gwyneth Paltrow initially felt like she was a failure at mothering, but eventually realized that post-natal depression is more prevalent than we realize. she insists that:

“We think that it makes us bad mothers or we didn’t do it right, but it’s like, we’re all in this together. I never understand why mothers judge other mothers, like, ‘What do you mean you didn’t breastfeed? What do you mean you didn’t do this?’”

Paltrow goes on to say that, “There’s a shame attached to it because if you say, ‘I had a baby and I couldn’t connect to the baby,’ it’s like, ‘What is wrong with you?’” She believes that those who suffer from postpartum depression never fully recover, but states that:

“That’s why I talk about it, because even the awareness of it started to diminish it. Because I didn’t feel like I’m dying or I’m crazy – period. It’s like, ‘Oh, this is a thing. This is a real thing and these are the symptoms and I have them all.’”

Check out more information about Gwyneth Paltrow’s struggle with postpartum depression: