'I had postpartum psychosis twice - I thought I had died'
A woman has revealed how she suffered from postpartum psychosis twice following the birth of her two children.
Kayleigh Avery, 38, first experienced the condition after the birth of her eldest child, Daisy, now 10.
Postpartum psychosis is a medical emergency that affects around 1 in 1,000 mothers after giving birth. It is a serious mental illness with symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, mania, and low mood.
Avery’s postpartum psychosis left her unable to sleep, and consumed by fear that she would not be able to look after her baby. It also led her to be suspicious of her midwife who she thought was going to take away her baby for being a ‘bad mum’.
"When we left the hospital, things started to get strange," she explains. "I started making loads of lists and had sudden bursts of energy, but then I would panic that I was doing something wrong.
Eventually, Avery says she ‘stopped moving and talking’ and went into a ‘catatonic state’.
“I thought I had actually died and ended up in hell, it was horrible,” she says.
Avery was admitted to a mother and baby unit for six weeks where she was able to overcome her illness after taking medication.
Yet, five years later when she gave birth to her second child, Jasmine, now five, she was again diagnosed with the condition.
“It all happened so suddenly both times,” Avery, from Sunderland, says. "I started to distrust my family - like they weren't my real family. It was horrible and made me not want to have more children."
When she fell pregnant for the second time, Avery’s consultant said she had a 50-50 chance of developing the disease again. The customer service worker believed she was fine for the first two weeks after the birth of Jasmine, until the psychosis ‘hit suddenly’.
"One minute I felt fine, then I felt strange," she explains, adding that she was in a catatonic state again within hours, with this episode being worse than the last.
She was placed in the mother and baby unit for a second time and had to undergo electroshock therapy, something she says ‘saved’ her.
Avery made a full recovery, but says that both experiences put her off from having any more children.
"It's a medical emergency,” Avery says. “If a mother doesn’t get treatment, it can escalate quickly. If anyone reads this, even a husband, raise the alarm if you notice something is wrong."
Avery is now working to raise awareness of postpartum psychosis and the importance of mother and baby units.
“If there hadn’t been a bed, I could have been placed anywhere, and something very bad could have happened,” she says.
Avery recently completed a 27-mile charity walk from Sunderland to the mother and baby unit in Morpeth, along with husband Dave, raising over £1,000 for Action on Postpartum Psychosis.
Additional reporting by SWNS.
Postpartum psychosis: Read more
Postpartum psychosis: 'I was scared I might harm my baby girl' (Yahoo Life UK, 10-min read)
‘Postpartum psychosis meant I felt no love towards my daughter when she was born’ (Yahoo Life UK, 3-min read)
'I thought my mother-in-law was plotting against me': What is Postpartum Psychosis? (Yahoo Life UK, 5-min read)
