A TV host has spoken openly about her battle with postnatal depression with her second child, fighting back tears as she relived the terrifying tipping point.
On ABC’s You Can’t Ask That, Antoinette Lattouf was one of eight parents from various walks of life who appeared in an emotionally charged episode about the frequently taboo topic.
Through a series of difficult questions, the group discussed shame, public and familial pressure, and personal guilt.
While the majority of the mothers on the show had fond recollections of meeting their newborn for the first time, Lattouf had a different experience with her second child.
As soon as she was handed to me, I just passed her over to my husband,’ she recalled
‘I think I just was feeling complete disconnect, if not repulsion.
‘All of a sudden, the room started to close in on me and I felt…I felt incredibly claustrophobic, and all around me is joy.
‘And then I feel I can’t show how I’m feeling because I’m ashamed, and I should be happy, and I’m not.’
Sydney dad Craig Anderson had similar feelings when his son was born.
‘When I went to hold him, it didn’t look that natural. It certainly didn’t feel that natural,’ he said.
‘I didn’t have that fireworks, lightbulb, ‘I’m in love,’ looking at this, you know, spawn.’
Lattouf felt she was failing as a mother and struggled with breastfeeding her daughter.
‘I think I was probably six days post-partum, and I was so thin, and I posted something on social media,’ she said.
And everybody was like, ‘Oh, my God!’ ‘Wow, MILF!’ ‘Look how skinny you are!’ ‘You look amazing!’
‘You’ve bounced back!’ ‘Look how skinny you are!’ ‘You look amazing!’
While many were asking her what her secret was to her stunning figure, the truth was far darker.
‘I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, anxiety and insomnia will do it for you.’
The question of whether they ever thought of hurting their baby was the most confronting, especially for Lattouf, who broke into tears.
The tipping point for me was when I was at a set of traffic lights and she was crying and I was sad and I didn’t know what to do,’ she recalled.
‘I felt bad that I had failed as a person and didn’t see an end in sight.
‘I was so damaged and I couldn’t be a mother … I couldn’t be a good mother.
‘I just though if I drove into oncoming traffic. So I started to and cars were beeping so I swerved and stopped.’
She immediately called her mother, telling her she needed her help and then called a mental health helpline.
‘I just needed to hear that I didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t something I’d asked for or something I did.’
Brisbane single mum Clary, who split up from her son’s father when she was 14 weeks pregnant went through a similar tipping point.
Getting help was the best thing that ever happened.
The world sucks and I’ve done a really bad thing to this baby and I’ve been really selfish bringing him into the world,’ Clary recalled.
‘Just, like, overwhelming. ‘I want to die. I want to die. ‘He’s going to suffer. He deserves better.’
‘If I put both of us in the car and crash the car, that will take him out.’
‘I snapped out of it for a moment. I was so disgusted that I thought that.’
Melbourne mum Jayde opened up about the horrifying moment she considered smothering her baby.
‘I was home alone and Theo just kept screaming,’ she said.
‘I put my hand over his face and I tried to smother him. And then I went, ‘Oh, that’s MY hand. That’s my baby’s face.’
‘I ran out. I shut the door and I sat outside and I lit up a cigarette. I called Justin, I’m like, ‘You need to come home right now, or you’re not coming home to a baby.’
As many as 1 in 5 women and 1 in 10 men experience depression in the year after the birth of their baby.
Postnatal depression was not yet widely spoken about when mother-of-three Lorraine had her first child in the 1980s.
‘I didn’t know the difference between the utter exhaustion of looking after a brand-new baby, with the utter exhaustion that’s associated with depression,’ she said.
