Ivanka Trump reveals battle with postnatal depression
IVANKA TRUMP has revealed she suffered postnatal depression after the births of each of her three children.
Ms Trump, 35, and her husband Jared Kushner, 36, who are both senior presidential advisers, have three children – Arabella, six, Joseph, three, and Theodore, one.
In an interview with The Dr. Oz Show on US television, she said: “With each of my three children I had some level of post-partum depression. It was a very challenging emotional time for me because I felt like I was not living up to my potential as a parent, or as an entrepreneur and executive.
“I had had such easy pregnancies that, in some way, the juxtaposition hit me even harder.” When the show’s host Dr Mehmet Oz asked why she had decided to talk about postnatal depression, Ms Trump said she hadn’t intended to until he asked. She said: “It’s incredibly important. Look, I consider myself a very hard-charging person. I am ambitious. I’m passionate. I’m driven, but this is something that affects parents all over the country.”
According to research by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about one in nine women experience symptoms of postnatal depression. Ms Trump has been in New York this week conducting meetings with foreign officials on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. As an adviser to her father she has focused on a set of issues including family leave and workforce development.
Other issues she has been concentrating on include human trafficking, which she called “the greatest human rights issue of our time”.
She said her decisions “weigh much heavier” on her now that she is in the White House because they are “impacting people’s lives”.