'How I battled the baby blues'

AT the age of 11, when most girls are thinking about fashion and make-up, Joanne Kipling had already picked out the names of her future children. As she grew older and her peers dreamed of high-flying careers, she longed for a steady home life with a family of her own and a man that she loved.

"I just wanted to get married and have kids," she says. "I met my husband Chris when I was 16 and when we decided to start a family, I thought it was going to be exactly like it said in the books. I was going to bond with them and be such a perfect stay-at-home mum...but it just wasn't like that - in reality, it was completely the opposite."

Joanne, 26, of Darlington, had her fairytale wedding at St Andrew's Church in Haughton, near Darlington, in 2000. The couple had been trying to conceive for three years and when they learned two days before Christmas 2002 that they were going to be parents, they were overjoyed.

"My husband kept saying, 'what do you want for Christmas'? And all I could say was, 'a baby'," recalls Joanne. "We were over the moon when I found out and I couldn't keep quiet about it."

But the pregnancy proved to be a difficult time. She was in and out of hospital with stomach pains and went on to develop diabetes. At 38 weeks, doctors decided to induce her after she had been in hospital for almost two weeks.

Joanne was in labour for 22 hours and finally underwent an emergency Caesarean. She lost a great deal of blood and needed a blood transfusion, while baby Elanor ended up in the special care baby unit, suffering from breathing problems. Joanne also discovered she was not producing enough milk to feed her baby, and after five days in hospital, she came home with Elanor, an exhausted and emotional wreck.

"We wanted everything to be perfect and it wasn't," she says, as Elanor, now two-and-a-half, climbs up on her mum's knee for a big hug.

"It was the breast feeding thing that was the most heartbreaking. I was relieved to get home and my mum and Chris had made the house look lovely, but I just couldn't seem to bond with her, no matter how hard I tried. I ended up crying all the time and leaving Chris to look after her.

"If she cried in the night or wanted feeding, he went to her. I did love her more than anything, but she didn't feel like she was mine. It was like I was looking at somebody else's baby. I just thought I couldn't do anything right, I couldn't feed her and I couldn't look after her. People say you always feel low after a baby, but it just seemed to go on and on and on."

Joanne's mood was exacerbated by her increased feelings of isolation, a common factor in women who are suffering from post-natal depression.

Heather Welford, author of Feelings After Birth, says that feelings of fatigue and low self-confidence are also common.

"Mums can feel guilty and that everybody is coping better than they are, and that they are unable to laugh," she says. "They can also lose a sense of time. One woman told me that she was standing with her hands in the washing up water, and when she came to she realised she'd been standing there for half an hour.

"Ten to fifteen per cent of new mothers have post-natal depression sufficiently strongly to need medication."

According to the National Childbirth Trust, there are three types of post-natal illness. Baby blues tend to appear in the first week and are often temporary and possibly hormone related. The main sign is tearfulness and a feeling of coming down to earth with a bump.

Post-natal depression tends to kick in a few weeks after the birth and people with a history of depression or who are enduring stressful situations, such as bereavement, moving house, money issues etc, can be prone.

The third illness, puerperal psychosis, affects around two in every 1,000 new mothers and can lead to hallucinations and mood swings.

"A mother with puerperal psychosis may not be necessarily depressed," says Heather. "But she may not have a handle on reality or know that her baby is her baby or who her husband is. It really needs intensive treatment and they're not really capable of looking after their baby.

"A woman with post-natal depression can hide it from their partner and their family."

Joanne hid her ever deepening post-natal depression from her family and friends. But matters came to a head when she went to see her health visitor, who handed her a post-birth questionnaire.

"It had things on it like 'are you able to laugh like you used to'? I read it and just burst into tears," she says.

Her doctor put her on anti-depressants, but before long, she discovered she was pregnant with her second child, William. This time, the pregnancy and birth went smoother, but William had jaundice and needed treatment in the special baby care unit.

Joanne says she bonded with her son straight away, but after two months, the familiar feelings of isolation and loneliness began to resurface.

The feelings escalated when the couple moved house to a new area at the same time as Chris was working anti-social hours as a manager of a busy town centre bar.

"I just started feeling tired all the time and crying again," Joanne recalls. "Before children, I'd gone out all the time and I used to work at the pub with Chris, but I went from that to staying in and just going out to get the food shopping once a week or to see my mum and sisters.

"Chris and I were arguing constantly. He was doing the night feeds, getting up to look after them, running their baths. I kept feeling guilty because I was thinking 'why did I have children'? The doctor kept saying, 'just see how you get on', but eventually I couldn't go through any more, and I rang them up and demanded an appointment."

Many mums suffering from post-natal depression find that their health visitor can put them in touch with other new mums, which helps stop the feelings of isolation.

The practical and emotional support of family and friends can be vital in ensuring mum gets some sleep and "me" time. Exercise and diet can also play a part in lifting mood.

The doctor prescribed Joanne anti-depressants and when she went to see her health visitor, she suggested she go to her local Sure Start sessions in Darlington. There were classes for mums and toddlers, baby massage and parenting.

"There were all new mums there and I found we could all talk to each other and share our problems," she says.

Joanne also joined a gym to help her tackle her weight gain and in May last year she got a job working part-time as a cashier at the Halifax bank in Newton Aycliffe while the children went to a nursery.

Gradually, her confidence and self-esteem improved and she started losing weight. She stopped taking the anti-depressants in September.

"I still have my moments, but now on a Saturday night Elanor and I will have our girlie night where we have our baths and put our creams on," she says, as a grinning Elanor drops a naked Barbie doll onto her mummy's lap.

"Barbies don't seem to have clothes in this house," she laughs.

William has almost disappeared headfirst into the toybox in the corner of the living room, but satisfied with his find, he toddles over to his mummy and entrusts her with his stripy Fimble toy. Joanne bends down and scoops up her son, holding him upside down and tickling his belly while he screams in delight.

"Children are fantastic and they bring something new to laugh at every day," she says. "But bringing them up is a big learning curve. It's not all rosy, you just need to take every day as it comes."

* The National Childbirth Trust can be contacted on 0870 444 8707 or online at www.nctpregnancyandbabycare.com. The Association for Post-Natal Illness has a helpline on 0207 386 0868 or can be accessed via the Internet on www.apni.org.

* To find a local Sure Start centre, contact 0870 0002288 or log onto www.surestart.gov.uk.

* Feelings After Birth by Heather Welford (The National Childbirth Trust, £6.99).