Pregnancy was so hard – Frankie Bridge

On the surface, it seems Frankie Bridge has it all – she’s beautiful, rich, famous, has an equally famous footballer husband, and two lovely, healthy young children.

But don’t judge the Bridge book by its cover. While the former Saturdays singer and now Loose Women presenter, who’s the wife of former Chelsea, Manchester City and England defender Wayne Bridge, does have a life many would envy, she has also struggled with her mental health most of her life.

But after suffering in silence with anxiety and depression for years, the mother-of-two wants to share her experiences, and has written Grow, an honest account of how hard it can be to grow babies and raise them while struggling with mental health issues.

The 32-year-old mother of Carter, six, and Parker, seven, hopes her book will open up maternal mental health conversations and reassure other mums it’s ok not to feel ok all the time.

‘We all cope in different ways and it doesn’t mean if you have depression and anxiety you can’t have a happy family. We need to not judge each other on how we cope – we have this thing ingrained in us that we have to be able to do it all on our own. That’s just not true. ‘There’s always friends and family to help, whether that’s mentally or helping with the kids. There’s no shame in that – we all need our time. A happy parent makes a happy baby.’

Did you have mental health problems from an early age? ‘Definitely. It was never recognised then – I was just a deep thinker, a bit of a worrier. Had it been understood and nipped in the bud at an early age, maybe I would have had a better way of dealing with it.’ When you were pregnant, were you worried you might get postnatal depression? ‘Having children was why I got on top of my mental health. I needed to be in a good place for my children. That was my inspiration to understand myself and take the time to get better.’

Grow: Motherhood, mental health & me, by Frankie Bridge is published by Brazen, at £18.99.