Tomorrow, October 10th, is World Mental Health Day, and in this week’s episode of The Rotunda, we meet a new mum who talks openly about her struggle with her mental health following the birth of her first baby.
Postnatal depression is a condition that affects 10-15 percent of women after having a baby.
Usually, Dr John Sheehan, consultant psychiatrist at the Rotunda explains, the condition will start pretty soon after delivery, often within the first six weeks, and can have a profound effect on how these new mothers experience these first few precious weeks of motherhood.
In this week’s episode of The Rotunda, we get to meet new parents, Ciara and and PJ, who are all ready in theatre to meet their second baby – who was a complete surprise, Ciara reveals, having fallen pregnant when the couple’s first daughter, Fiadh, was just nine month old.
Having suffered from postnatal depression after Fiadh was born, Ciara explains how it affected them, and how she feels worried about her anxiety returning now that she is due to give birth again.
“It was such a mixed bag of ‘Oh my God we conceived naturally’ to ‘Oh my God, how are we going to do this,’ the new mum reveals about finding out she was expecting again so soon after her first baby.
“I was still in the middle of my postntal depression, and here we were, pregnant again. The anxiety was taking on a life of its own. Thoughts were coming into my head, from like “what if the person driving her hasn’t strapped her into her car seat properly” to the extent where I could nearly see them crashing in my head.”
Also, in episode 5 of The Rotunda, we meet young couple Sophie and Daryl don’t know the sex of their unborn child but their choice of names is proving confusing for midwife Veronica, while mother-of-two Daniela is wondering if childbirth will be any easier this time around though it’s been 13 years since she had her last child.
The Rotunda goes behind the scenes at the world’s longest-running maternity hospital where over one million Dubliners have been born and some 24 new babies are added to that number every day.
This week’s episode airs on RTÉ2 Thursday night at 9.35pm
