We need to talk about postpartum psychosis, with Catherine Cho

Doing It Right with Pandora Sykes

So many women experience a postpartum mental disorder after having a baby. For me, it was postnatal depression. For Catherine Cho, it was postpartum psychosis.

You might not have thought about postpartum psychosis before. Certainly, I had no idea before I read Catherine’s memoir, that 1-2 in every 1000 women will be affected by it. So why isn’t it being talked about more? Or even, at all?

In this episode, Catherine explains how she came to be sectioned on a psychiatric ward, how it impacted her relationship with her baby son and the rest of her family, the depression which followed her psychosis, and how she navigated second time motherhood.

I know this episode might feel scary to some of you. But I believe that forewarned is forearmed. That knowing about these things can better protect us and those around us. And that politically, we should be talking more about matrescence - thought to be as big a cognitive change as puberty! - and how to improve maternal mental health.

If you or someone you know is struggling, please call your GP or the NHS helpline, on 111. If it is an emergency, please call 999. For more information, visit app-network.org.

Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness by Catherine Cho

You can read an excerpt of Catherine’s book, here.

Get in touch at [e-mail]

Presented by Pandora Sykes

Sound by Kelsey Bennett

Co-production by Pandora Sykes and Kelsey Bennett