This Mother’s Day Edition of “#WithChude” Tackles a Topic That is Rarely Discussed: Postnatal Depression 

This Mother’s Day edition of “#WithChude” covers a topic that is rarely discussed: postnatal depression.

Tradition, literature, the media, and news reports all teach us that following the birth of a child, parents, dads, and mothers should be filled with nothing but the most radiant pleasure. But this is a sickness. And so many women are affected by it. And we need to speak about it.

Chude Jideonwo has this to say about this episode:

There’s too much stigma in Nigeria and in so many societies if the African continent. We stigmatize everything, you know one of the blessings of my life is that I do not respect stigma. I remember the first time I was going to see a therapist, the first time I talked about having Tourette’s syndrome. The first time I talked about anything, you know or just living my life as a single man at 36 just all kinds of things that people say is a taboo, that you don’t do like this or like that, so these people don’t see you like this. I don’t understand it, I don’t understand it. And it’s frustrating for me because the more I talk to people, the more I interview people, the more I see people not getting help because they are afraid of being stigmatized, why is the stigma in a person seeing a psychiatrist when they have a mental health problem?  Why is it stigmatized?  Why is it stigmatized if a person has, as they say, lost their mind? Why is it stigmatized?  Even if the person ran out of their house naked in the morning because they had lost their minds, why should that be a cause for stigma? Why isn’t that a cause for empathy, support, love, for care???  What is wrong with us as a people that we find such a need to label, exclude, delegitimize. What is it about us?

And to all women, mothers who are suffering from postpartum depression, you are not alone and you can get the help that you need and there’s nothing wrong with getting help.

 

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Watch these women share their experiences with post-natal depression:

 

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A post shared by Chude Jideonwo (@chudeity)

Head over to watch.withchude.com and listen to the full podcast on listen.withchude.com, or Apple Premium.