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Former prime minister Jenny Shipley has told of her debilitating battle with postnatal depression as a new website is about to be launched for mothers facing the same struggle.
"An experience with postnatal depression is one of the most debilitating things I have ever endured," said Mrs Shipley, a mother of two.
"It was made worse by the fact that I saw myself, others saw me, and family members expected me to cope, and yet I was so aware inside my head and body that I was not coping.
"It compounds the desperation you feel when [you are] the mother of this beautiful baby, and yet a 'nobody' in your head in terms of the sense of loss and debilitation you sometimes feel."
Mrs Shipley's story, and that of her husband, Burton, are told on the website mothersmatter.co.nz, to be launched by the former National Party leader this week.
The site is the work of the Christchurch-based Postnatal Depression Family/Whanau New Zealand Trust.
Trust chairwoman Dr Denise Nicholson said the website offered up-to-date information for mothers and pregnant women, fathers and health professionals.
Mrs Shipley said she was fortunate to suffer only a mild period of postnatal depression "but it needed all the support I could engage from the medical fraternity, and all the willpower I could muster within myself to both recognise this issue and then take positive steps forward to cope with it".
Most of the written material available at the time was "terribly boring and extremely poorly directed".
Burton Shipley recalls being "completely bewildered" about his wife losing her sense of self-confidence and self-belief.
"It was so uncharacteristic that it was hard for us to come to terms with it, let alone to recognise the need to support her."
