Published on
Updated
Reading 3 mins.
The birth of a child is not always synonymous with fulfillment… and the swimming champion knows something about it. Last year, she experienced great distress after the arrival of her youngest child. She evokes this ordeal to raise awareness of postpartum depression.
Postpartum doesn’t just happen to others. Even the champions can be confronted with anxieties and difficulties during the arrival of a newborn. This is what happened to Laure Manaudou, when her third child was born. She tells, in an interview with Brut, how she lived this very special period and how she came out of depression.
“I saw everything in black”
Despite a steely mind, the former sportswoman plunged into distress after giving birth to her youngest. The trigger would have been infant feeding.
“I think it came about because I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to breastfeed. I didn’t have enough milk, yet I expressed my milk, I took granules, I took herbal teas, finally I did everything“, she explains frankly.
Thinking “to be tough” and “strong” mentally following her past as a high-level sportswoman, the young mother made the (common) mistake of not “asking for help” from those close to her. Even her husband was not informed of her anxieties.
“I don’t even know if I told my husband, maybe once“, she specifies.
However, the swimmer recognizes that she would have needed support. Overwhelmed, suffocated and sleep deprived, she even sees her behavior change:
“I saw everything in black, it took up all the space. I was negative when basically I’m not like that“, she continues.
Follow your pregnancy week by week
“For a year, I was in depression”
She also adds that she felt like she didn’t know how to take care of her son, while “it was the 3rd.
For almost a year, the young mother will suffer in silence, until she decides to cut short this flood of negative emotions. And it is while breastfeeding her son that she will have a click.
“I didn’t want my children to have that image of me. I think it was for them that I realized what I had“, she confides.
The swimmer now wants to raise public awareness
Today, Laure Manaudou wants to encourage women to seek help and support.
“It is not possible that so many women are in depression like that and are not helped. It should not be allowed to leave a mother alone with her infant“, she regrets.
An essential message for all young mothers who are having difficulty with their babies.
Postpartum depression: what treatment?
The postpartum period represents the period from childbirth until the return of diapers. But postpartum depression can last for months – even years.
A depressive state – characterized by great fatigue and vulnerability, anxiety, mood swings and sometimes even suicidal thoughts – which would affect between 15% and 30% of mothers, according to a survey carried out in August 2021 by OpinionWay and relayed by the Secretary of State for Children, Adrien Taquet.
The problem ? Also according to this survey, only 5% of mothers say “have been diagnosed by a specialist” and 78% of parents say they have “never heard of postpartum depression“during medical consultations.
A pathology that we do not talk about enough, and which has nevertheless been the subject of major advances at the beginning of the year. A mandatory interview around the fifth week after childbirth was thus introduced in early 2022 by the government to identify postpartum depression.
” For women at risk, it will be followed by a second interview around the twelfth week. “, specified Mr. Taquet, during the Assizes of mental health and psychiatry.
If signs of depression are identified, the mother will be redirected to a psychiatrist or psychologist for appropriate care.