Entertainment
Stacey Solomon feels ‘guilty’ for not loving son enough as a teen mum as she struggled with postnatal depression
Stacey Solomon has opened up about feeling ‘tremendous guilt’ for not bonding with her eldest son Zachary, 12, after he was born as she struggled with postnatal depression.
Postnatal depression is a form of depression parents can experience after having a baby, and affects more than 1 in every 10 women within a year of giving birth, according to the NHS.
The Loose Women star, 30, confessed she ‘just didn’t feel it’ when she had her first child at 18-years-old, and compared with how she felt about her younger sons Leighton, nine and one-year-old Rex when they were born she feels she was’terrible when I had Zach’.
Speaking on the podcast Bryony Gordon’s Mad World, the mum-of-three said: ‘I don’t look back and regret anything because what’s the point in that? It won’t get me anywhere, but I look forward and have moments now with Zacky where I think, “Oh I wish I loved you from the very minute”. Not that I didn’t, I’m sure I did, but I just didn’t feel it and I didn’t get it.
‘It brings me tremendous guilt, especially because I love my other children. When they’re born and I love them and I’m like this is amazing. I immediately think, “Wow I was terrible when I had Zach”. It is what it is, I can’t change it. It was just the way that I felt.’
Stacey, who is set to wed boyfriend Joe Swash this year, recalled feeling ‘deeply unhappy’ and ‘uncontrollably sobbing all the time’ when she became a mum for the first time. However her experiences with Zachary helped her deal with similar feelings after the births of her other sons.
‘I was prepared to feel that way and I knew that it would pass,’ she said.
‘When I was in it with Zach, I genuinely thought I am never gonna be happy again and I am never gonna love my child. It just made me feel horrendous.
‘When I had Rex I got the same feelings, just the gut wrenching, deeply unhappy for no reason. I’m so happy but just deeply unhappy and uncontrollably sobbing all the time, but at least I knew while I was going through that little state that I would come out of it.
‘There were positives but I really wished I didn’t feel like that, but it’s just who I am I suppose.’
The TV star is in a good place between wedding planning with Joe, 39, and transforming the plush new family home they moved into recently.
Stacey broke down in tears as she gave fans a tour on social media of the house, which comes with a huge garden, a playhouse and a pool.
‘We feel so lucky and are so grateful to have found this hidden treasure closer to our family and further out,’ she said.
‘We can’t wait to fill it with love and give it our everything. To raise our family here. And to just start afresh.’
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