I was watching Oprah Winfrey’s talk show last night about Brooke Shields’ post partum depression in her book Down Came The Rain with hubby last night, and made me think of my uni friend who has just given birth weeks ago.
We talked over the phone days ago, and at first I only thought of congratulating her on being a new mother, and hopefully she’s doing well on breastfeeding. But I got a shock when I heard from her that she doesn’t want to hold her baby, and doesn’t even feel like she’s a mother now.
She said she didn’t plan to get pregnant soon after marriage, and this baby is an accident. Even though she had read a lot during her pregnancy, and trying hard to accept the fact that she’s going to be a mother, she doesn’t feel like one, and dread about giving birth.
When the nurse brought her newborn baby to her, she didn’t feel like holding or touching her baby. She’s scared when seeing her baby, and didn’t know what to do. I think she’s also afraid of hurting him because majority of first time mums have no experience in handling newborns. But she still refuses to touch her baby even after a few weeks.
Needless to say, she didn’t breastfeed the baby. How to do it without holding the baby? But she express her milk initially, and due to lack of stimulation, her milk production decreased. She doesn’t want to feed her baby with breastmilk anyway.
I’m sad to hear about her baby blues. If I know that she’s expecting, I’ll see her when I got back to Penang, but she kept her pregnancy a secret, which I still can’t understand. She said she felt embarassed of getting pregnant so soon when she told her friends she won’t. But to me, surprise pregnancy should be celebrated with joy, and I’ll definitely be proud of it, even if I need to do lots of mental adjustment.
To make the matter worse, she has not been bathing for weeks as it’s not her full month yet. Both sides of her families are very conservative, and think that she should follow the traditional ways of confinement. Without bathing for so long, I think I can’t think straight either. She felt miserable with her confinement. And that made her resenting her baby even more.
I can’t do much except talking to her. She refused to see anyone until her full month. By then, I hope she’s feeling much better.

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