Sharing their stories. Reese Witherspoon, Behati Prinsloo and more celebrity moms have spoken openly about their postpartum depression.
The Big Little Lies alum had “a different experience” after each of her children’s births, she told Jameela Jamil in April 2020. “[With] one kid, I had kind of mild postpartum, and [with] one kid, I had severe postpartum where I had to take pretty heavy medication because I just wasn’t thinking straight at all,” the actress said during an episode of Jamil’s “I Weigh” podcast. “And then I had one kid where I had no postpartum at all.”
The Whiskey in a Teacup author shares daughter Ava and son Deacon with her ex-husband, Ryan Phillippe, as well as son Tennessee with her husbannd, Jim Toth. After she stopped nursing her little ones, she went through “hormonal roller-coasters.”
Witherspoon explained at the time: “No one explained that to me. I was 23 years old when I had my first baby and nobody explained to me that when you wean a baby, your hormones go into the toilet. I felt more depressed than I’d ever felt in my whole life. It was scary.”
Without “guidance or help,” the Oscar winner “white-knuckled” her way back to herself despite “reaching out to [her] doctors for answers.”
The Little Fires Everywhere star said, “I think hormones are so understudied and not understood. … There just isn’t enough research about what happens to women’s bodies and the hormonal shifts that we have aren’t taken as seriously as I think they should be.”
As for Prinsloo, the Victoria’s Secret Angel received help from her husband, Adam Levine, while battling PPD.
“My husband was so incredibly supportive and always got me out of it,” the mother of two said on a June 2019 Today appearance. “I think it’s very normal, though, as a young mom and a new mom to feel helpless and to feel overly emotional, you know.”
The model added, “I think I got lucky not to have it to an extreme case, but you can see yourself spiraling.”
Keep scrolling for details on how other celebrity mothers have overcome their PPD, from Brooke Shields to Shay Mitchell.