Model, celeb, and hilariously outspoken Internet star Chrissy Teigen recently opened up about a very personal subject: her postpartum depression after giving birth last April to daughter Luna.
Much of Teigen’s life appears, from afar, to be quite charmed — she’s married to music superstar John Legend, she’s graced the covers of numerous magazines, she’s as witty as they come. But as Teigen, 31, points out in a new essay in Glamour magazine, postpartum depression does not discriminate. It can affect any new mother and strikes more often than you might expect.
In fact, 1 in 9 recent mothers experience PPD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And that statistic doesn’t account for a number of other perinatal mood and anxiety disorders that women can experience during and after pregnancy.
Right after giving birth, many women feel sad or tearful randomly throughout the day. Often women will have crying episodes lasting a few minutes, and then feel fine afterward. This time period is commonly called the “baby blues,’’ during which a woman’s body is adjusting to major shifts in estrogen and progesterone levels, according to Jennifer Daman, an obstetrician and gynecologist and assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine.
After a few weeks, however, the baby blues should disappear. If they don’t, that can be a sign a woman is experiencing something more serious, like PPD.
In her essay, Teigen wrote of the severe anxiety she felt for months after her daughter’s birth, of sometimes not being able to leave the couch for days on end. Despite having an accommodating work environment and comfortable home life, “I couldn’t figure out why I was so unhappy,’’ she wrote.
Teigen isn’t the only high-profile mom to talk about struggling with PPD. Carol Citrone, a nurse at Boston Obstetrics & Gynecology in Brookline, said celebrities such as Teigen, Hayden Panettiere, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Brooke Shields opening up about their PPD is helping to break down the stigma that can surround it.
“They’re letting people know that it happens,’’ Citrone said, “and that it’s OK to have treatment, because women often feel like they shouldn’t feel sad after having a baby because it is supposed to be the happiest time of their lives.’’
Right after giving birth, new mothers can face many challenges, from marital to social to financial. Often women need to return to work soon after giving birth — sometimes earlier than the doctor-recommended 12-week maternity leave. At that early point, neither mother nor baby is usually sleeping well, which won’t help a woman struggling with PPD, Citrone said.
Trouble sleeping, along with feeling anxious, guilty, or worthless, are a few of the common symptoms of PPD, Daman said. At Tufts Medical Center, doctors use the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale to see if a woman is at risk. The EPDS is a series of 10 questions that helps doctors understand how patients have been feeling seven days prior to the visit.
Treatments vary depending on the severity of the disorder. Often, talking about how she’s feeling with family members, a therapist, or a support group is all a woman needs to recover from PPD. In some cases, medication is needed. But the most important thing a woman can do is to speak up so she can get the extra support she needs.
“Reach out to your ob/gyn or doctor. It’s important to acknowledge how you’re feeling,’’ Daman said. “And don’t be embarrassed about it, because you’re not alone and there is nothing to be ashamed of.’’
As for Teigen, in December, eight months after giving birth, she learned she had PPD and anxiety. Learning about it, discovering how prevalent it is, and getting treatment (she writes that she’s started taking an antidepressant and plans to go to therapy) motivated Teigen to write about her postpartum experience.
“I’m speaking up now because I want people to know it can happen to anybody and I don’t want people who have it to feel embarrassed or to feel alone,’’ she wrote. “One thing I do know is that — for me — just merely being open about it helps.’’
Lexi Peery can be reached at lexi.peery@globe.com
