‘Doctor gave me a bottle of pills and zero compassion’

POLICE officer Kerry Rose, 35, said she spent eight months ‘suffering in silence’ with postnatal depression, but was shown ‘zero compassion’ when she finally went to her GP.

Mrs Rose, who lives in Colchester with her husband and their two children – aged eight and three – is pregnant with their third child, due in August.

She said: ‘After suffering in silence – and denial – with postnatal depression for around eight months, I finally summoned the courage to see my GP and ask for the help I desperately needed.

‘I wasn’t expecting to be dispatched with instructions to be more active or, after my second visit, a bottle of pills and zero compassion. In the end, I only started to feel better when I paid for private counselling.’

Mrs Rose added: ‘When my son was born in March 200 there was no immediate rush of love, rather a huge sense of feeling like a failure which began in hospital when I struggled to breastfeed.

‘I’d expected that the midwives would show kindness towards me and work with me until I got the hang of it. Instead I was handed formula milk and left to my own devices. Eventually I couldn’t deny it to myself any longer – I had postnatal depression.

‘But my GP seemed dismissive of the extent of my poor mental state, telling me to “go and do some exercise”. It was a bit late for that.

‘A few weeks later I saw a male GP whose answer was to prescribe anti-depressants. Certainly they helped me to feel like me again and to finally settle into being a mum. In fact, I took them for two years, almost too afraid to come off them.

‘But there was no follow-up care from my GP, no caring calls or visits from my midwife or health visitor to check on my fragile mental wellbeing, no assurances that together we could find ways to cope with and overcome my feelings.

‘Now I’m pregnant for a third time, I’m no longer afraid of speaking up and of making the healthcare professionals around me aware of my experiences. I want to be heard this time and for reassurance and help to be offered proactively should I suffer from depression again when my baby is born.’