How having a baby can make you lose your mind

Terrifying visions. Hearing voices. It happens to as many as one in 1,000 new mothers — and doctors still aren’t sure of the reasons why ...

THERE’S a story I’d like to tell you, but whenever I try, I stumble, unable to explain exactly how it happened.

One thing I can pin my finger firmly on is the day I finally realised that I was ill.

A few months after the birth of my daughter, Beatrix, when I was 31, I clearly heard a child’s voice behind me, counting, ‘One, two, three... one, two, three...’ in a Glaswegian accent. I looked around for its owner, but I was alone.

Later that evening, I watched a psychedelic display of lions and roaring tigers cavort on the bare blue wall opposite me. I wondered how this could be happening, and suddenly knew that something was very wrong.

Given that all of this was happening in my room on a psychiatric ward, my realisation had come rather late.

There had been other not-so-subtle hints in the weeks before I got there: my belief that my baby had been swapped at birth, for instance, and that road signs were specially tailored messages just for me.

I never considered these ‘truths’ to be odd, let alone symptoms of an illness. Yet that’s precisely what they were — evidence of a struggling brain, one that kept coughing up delusions.

I was diagnosed with postpartum psychosis, a severe mental illness affecting about one or two in every 1,000 women soon after having a baby. It can cause a litany of symptoms, from anxiety and profound sadness to chattiness, hyperactivity and euphoria. Women with postpartum psychosis can rapidly cycle between moods and may experience hallucinations and delusions.

While it’s more common in women who have bipolar disorder (affecting 25 per cent of those with the condition, compared with 0.1 per cent of the general public), it can affect women who have never had mental health issues before. A psychiatric emergency, it requires urgent treatment as symptoms can start suddenly and quickly worsen.

At its most severe it poses a risk of suicide. It can even lead to accidental harm to the baby or infanticide, though this is very rare.

WOmEn who suffer postpartum psychosis often worry about the stigma of revealing they’ve had the disease, and many don’t seek help. One study found that of women who had symptoms of postpartum depression, 41 per cent had not sought help nine months after the birth.

many said they believed their symptoms were normal and would go away on their own.

I can identify with those women. I feel the fear of stigma keenly as I write this, afraid of how I’ll be judged.

For months, I thought my symptoms were a normal part of motherhood. The symptoms of postpartum psychosis can wax and wane, so sometimes I didn’t feel so bad. Yet at the peak of my disease a nurse told me I was one of the sickest women she’d ever seen enter the ward.

This shocked me. I was a bit anxious, a bit bothered, but surely not seriously ill? I had made every excuse for what was happening to me: sleep deprivation, the shock of becoming a new mother, the stress of losing blood and developing an infection after my Caesarean section. I lacked any awareness of how bad I truly was.

One in five mothers suffers from depression, anxiety or psychosis during pregnancy or the first year after giving birth, according to a 2016 report by the Independent mental Health Taskforce for nHS England. Yet in England, fewer than 15 per cent of local clinical commissioning groups provide effective perinatal services for women with severe or complex conditions.

Over 40 per cent provide no service at all. All this despite the fact that, in the UK, suicide is the leading cause of maternal deaths in the year after giving birth.

Beatrix was my first child. After discovering she was breech, a plan was made for me to have an elective Caesarean section.

As it happened, I went into labour in January last year, before the scheduled procedure date, meaning I needed an emergency Caesarean before my 8lb 7oz of pink, screamy gorgeousness was born.

Reflecting on my expectations of bringing her into the world versus the reality, I see a dark, vast cavern. I expected to be the first one to hold her, imagining a celebratory moment as Beatrix, my husband and I were together as a family for the first time.

Instead, thanks to the cocktail of drugs I had been given, I spent most of my C-section trying to throw up. I lost a third of my blood volume so, when it was over, I began to shake violently and was unable to hold my little girl. A nurse later tried to help me breastfeed Beatrix, but I was still shaking too much.

In those first few days, the daggers of disease began to stab my mind. I thought all the nurses were talking about me, and had an ever-growing suspicion that my baby had been swapped.

Back home with Beatrix, I felt increasingly anxious. I thought social workers were spying, plotting to take my baby. I felt I had to prove to the world I was a model mum, so they wouldn’t see any signs of weakness.

I hid my thoughts and fears from everyone, even my husband — my best friend and confidant for more than 13 years.

But he knew from my behaviour something was wrong. At his behest, six weeks after the birth, I went to see a GP.

She said it was a ‘red flag’ against my care for Beatrix that I had said I didn’t want a particular health visitor, who had been dismissive of the pain I suffered following my C-section.

The phrase set me off and I