This archive report was first published on 2 August 2019.
Postpartum depression affects millions of women worldwide, with 1 in 7 experiencing the condition. Two Kenyan celebrities, Jackie Matubia and Lillian Muli, have recently opened up about their struggles with the perinatal mood disorder.
Matubia, a former Tahidi High actress, revealed that she sank into depression after the birth of her daughter Zari Wanjiku in 2015. She confessed to Parents Magazine that she had conflicting feelings about being a new mother and struggled to balance work and family life.
‘I had these conflicting feelings of constantly wondering whether I should have waited to have a baby and when I tried going back to work, I felt like I was not being the best mum. I would wake up and cry for about two hours and I couldn’t get myself out of it. It even caused some friction in my marriage because we were young first-time parents and during that period there wasn’t much awareness about such things,’ she said.
Matubia is not alone in her struggle. Lillian Muli, a Citizen TV news anchor, recently disclosed that she suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of her son. She revealed that the condition led to a drastic weight loss, with her weighing 56 kilos at the time.
‘When I was poached by Citizen TV in the year 2010 I had lost so much weight. I weighed 56 kilos at the time after having my baby. I didn’t look nice by the way, but everyone was like how did you lose after having a baby? What a lot of people didn’t know was that the birth of my first child took a toll on me emotionally and mentally. So I went through an episode of post-natal depression so I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t function. It was hard for me,’ she revealed on Malkia Africa Production.
