Shay Mitchell Shares Her Experience With Prenatal Depression
Shay Mitchell Reflected on Her Experience With Prenatal Depression: "I Was Like, 'Wait, What's This?'"
Shay Mitchell is opening up about the prenatal depression she experienced while she was pregnant with her now-1-year-old daughter, Atlas. In an interview on Katie Lowes's podcast, Katie's Crib, Shay shared that she struggled with prenatal depression — which affects roughly seven percent of parents in the United States — and was worried she would potentially experience postpartum depression.
"I struggled with [prenatal depression], so that was something that was difficult," she said, mentioning that at around four months pregnant she really began to struggle with her identity as a mother and felt alone. "And I actually thought I was gonna have a hard time with [postpartum depression]. Just because, I don't know, I had an inkling."
However, Shay mentioned that having help — like hiring a night nurse for the month after Atlas was born — made the transition into motherhood a lot smoother. "Because of the help that we are really fortunate to have, it's made it a lot easier," she said.
In part two of the interview, Shay reflected further on the challenging parts of her pregnancy, noting that she's apprehensive about potentially going through some of those low points again, despite "100 percent" wanting another child in the future.
"For the majority of it, I was so blessed and liked a lot of it, but the parts that I didn't like, I'm like, 'Aww man. Wow.' And I'm gonna be honest and say it, I want a sibling [for Atlas] so bad, but I don't want to go through pregnancy again," she said. "I wasn't that beaming goddess that absolutely loved it. I don't want to do it again because it took a toll on me mentally.
"I had prepartum [depression], not post, pre, and that was something that I didn't know back then. I only heard [of] postpartum, so I was preparing myself for that. But then when I was upset and not feeling my best during, I was like, 'Wait, what's this? Nobody talked about this! I should be so happy right now.' So I'm nervous to go back into it for that again."
