Brooke Shields urges psychiatrists to help raise public awareness of postpartum depression
San Diego, USA, 24 May 2007 – In an exclusive interview, published today on MedWire News, Hollywood actress Brooke Shields talked about her personal experience of postpartum depression.
Brooke Shields has been in the public eye since publication of her book in 2005, which recounted the difficulties she experienced as a new mother. There was a media furore when actor Tom Cruise then criticized her in a TV interview for taking antidepressants to treat her postpartum depression.
Ms Shields is committed to raising public awareness of postpartum depression and spoke to MedWire News to help bring her message to medical professionals. Her hope is that physicians will begin screening for postpartum depression much earlier than they do currently.
Speaking openly about her experiences, Shields told MedWire: “I …wanted to be asked to focus on the fears that I had about being a mother. What happens is that you get pregnant and then it’s like planning a wedding. You focus on whether it’s a boy or girl, the baby furniture, and the color of the nursery.” She continues: “I wasn’t racked with sobs and thrashing around …It was more like one continuous, quiet sob.” The troubling thoughts, the sense of distance from her daughter, and the haunting images of her daughter being harmed were compounded by the shame she felt at having these emotions.
Ms. Shields believes that if physicians could be more open to discussing the less-than-glamorous aspects of motherhood, such as the enormous hormonal shifts involved in the post-pregnancy transition, women would enter parenthood with less stress, and the more than 10%1 who develop postpartum depression would have a better understanding of the biological underpinnings of their disorder.
Read the full interview with Brooke Shields on MedWire News.
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1 Neill Epperson, C. Postpartum Major Depression: Detection and Treatment. American Family Physician 1999, 59:2247-2259.