Bryce Dallas Howard Talks About Her Post Natal Depression

July 24, 2010 by tiffanyb
Filed under: Celebrity Baby News

Actress Bryce Dallas Howard has joined other actresses like Gwyneth Paltrow and Brooke Shields and opens up about her post natal depression.

Bryce put on a fake happy face when she gave birth to her son Theodore Norman, now 3 years old. She pretended that everything was fine on the outside but she was suffering on the inside.

The actress reveals that she had planned for a home birth but due to medical complications had to go to the hospital. She says, “Mostly I recall the moment someone handed my son to me, and I heard shouts of joy, and my father crying, “Bryce, you’re an incredible mother!” She adds, “And then… Nothing. I felt nothing… Someone encouraged me to sit up, and slowly, one by one, friends and family visited. Some were crying, others bursting with joy. Glassy-eyed, I politely listened to their impressions of our new son. I had no impression of my own.”

Bryce revealed her struggle with post natal depression in Paltrow’s newsletter GOOP after Gwyneth talked about her struggle with depression after giving birth to her son Moses.

Howard, who found out she was pregnant only a week after marrying her husband Seth Gabel, goes on to talk about how painful breastfeeding was and how she referred to her son Theo as ‘it.”

She says, “I definitely felt I was a rotten mother-not a bad one, a rotten one. Because the truth was, every time I looked at my son, I wanted to disappear.”

Bryce was diagnosed with severe post natal depression by a therapist and sought out the book Down Came the Rain by Brooke Shields. She recalls the book being a “revelation” and slowly she became to come out the depression.

Nowadays, Howard talks about how overjoyed she is with her son and how women must not be afraid to ask for help.