What to Know
Actress Hayden Panettiere has been making the rounds to promote her new book, ‘This is Me: A Reckoning.’ During all of her recent appearances, Panettiere has been opening up about many of the difficult parts of her life she talks about in the book. She talks about the struggles of being a child actor and the difficult relationship it created with her mom, and she is super honest about the hardest parts of her life. One of those things is her addiction that came as a result of postpartum depression, and the struggles that led to her giving up custody of her now 11-year-old daughter when she was a toddler.
As always, she’s open about the difficult parts of motherhood.
While speaking with Gayle King, Panettiere mentioned that she goes into detail about her pregnancy and postpartum experience in her new book. She told King she had a “wonderful pregnancy,” but her delivery was anything but.
“I had a really rough birth, to the point where I almost didn’t make it through,” she admitted.
She also shared that her postpartum depression began almost immediately after giving birth.
“There I am with this beautiful, healthy, beautiful baby girl and this very fortunate life … and I could not for the life of me be happy,” she said. “I was so depressed, and couldn’t find a way out.”
It was hard for her to reconcile the mother she was with the mother she imagined she would be before giving birth. “I had all these ideas in my head of what I wanted to do as a mom, as a parent,” she said.
There was also another dark thought looming. “I think I was also scared because of what my mom did to me that I might do that to my child.”
People had nothing but love for her honesty.
“So proud of her for telling her story 💞 can’t wait to read it.” one person wrote.
“Rooting for you @haydenpanettiere – ALWAYS,” another comment read.
“You opened up so much and spoke so well on the View thank you💯⚘️👏,” another person wrote.
“Strong, and a hero for telling her truth. 🫶🏼👏🏼”
“Awesome @haydenpanettiere so proud and happy for you ❤️😁💯”
“Congratulations on the book 👏 you are truly inspiring and incredible and you are helping so many of us find our strength ❤️👏”
She has opened up over the years about her postpartum depression.
During her interview with King, Hayden Panettiere pointed out that there’s “so much stigma” when it comes to postpartum depression. She said that while she was experiencing it, she had support from people who had also gone through it, but there was a “shocking” amount of backlash.
She has never shied away from the opportunity to talk about what she experienced in a hope to help others.
“I wish I knew to look out for it,” she said during an appearance on E! News in 2023. “But I never heard any stories about it at all. I just thought there was something seriously wrong with me.”
She said she believed alcohol would fix the problem. “And it didn’t. It does for a moment, but then it made everything worse,” she said.
The actress lamented the fact that the isolation of postpartum depression “hurts” for the mom going through it. “You’re like, ‘I should be able to get over this all by myself.’”
“I wish somebody told me that that was a possibility, told me it’s OK if you birth your child and you’re not immediately like, ‘Oh my god, I love you more than anything in the entire world!’” she said.
She said she also wished that she had been told that it wasn’t “abnormal” to look at your newborn and think “Oh my gosh, this is like a crazy little creation that I’m going to love when I get to know you.”
READ MORE: 7 Postpartum Recovery Products to Put on Your Baby Registry
