When Motherhood Hurts: The Silent Pain We Don't Talk About Enough

My favourite aunt had it.

I was young back then but I could tell. At first, I thought she hated her child, she didn't want to have anything to do with her. It got really bad that she couldn't breastfeed the child. She didn't bathe her either.

I saw my uncle bathe the baby from when she was 3 months old till when she was 8 months old.

After several years now, I see her and her child twinning. Matching clothes, laughing, inseparable. It was then I realised that something was wrong then. She didn't hate her child. She was drowning.

Thank God her husband was a medical doctor, he understood her and wore her shoes when it was hurting her the most.

A similar case happened in church where a woman with a baby started misbehaving. She was biting the baby. Thank God that it was in a church where people were present. They took the child from her, and also took her for medical care. 

If no one was there, the child could have died and we'd blame the woman.

If you must give birth as a woman, ensure to do it with a lovely partner. If you're not privileged to have one, get yourself a help. Childbirth is no joke.

That last line is the truth we have refused to say out loud for too long.

It Was Never Hatred. It Was Illness.

In many Nigerian homes, when a new mother withdraws, we have quick names for her. She is lazy. She is wicked. She is ungrateful. She doesn't love her child. We whisper that she was not ready to be a mother.

We almost never say: She might be sick.

What my aunt experienced, and what that woman in the church experienced, has a name. In many cases, it is called Postpartum Depression, and in more severe cases, Postpartum Psychosis. It is not spiritual attack. It is not a character flaw. It is a medical condition that happens after childbirth, when hormones crash, sleep disappears, identity shifts, and the pressure to be a "strong mother" becomes crushing.

According to the World Health Organization, about 1 in 5 women in developing countries experience a mental health condition after childbirth. In Nigeria, where we tell mothers to be strong and endure, most never get help. They suffer in silence, and their babies suffer with them.

Postpartum depression doesn't always look like crying. Sometimes it looks like exactly what I saw in my aunt: detachment. The inability to breastfeed, not because she didn't want to, but because her mind and body could not connect. The inability to bathe her own baby, because even touching the baby felt overwhelming, frightening, or empty. 

She wasn't rejecting her child. Her mind was rejecting everything, including herself.

How It Really Feels, When No One Is Watching

A mother with postpartum depression might love her child fiercely and still feel nothing when she holds her. She might feel guilt so heavy it chokes her. She might be terrified that she is a bad mother, so she pulls away to protect the child from herself.

Some women feel rage they can't explain. Some feel anxiety that the baby will die if they sleep. Some hear voices or have thoughts that scare them — like the woman in church who was biting her baby. That is not evil. That is an emergency. That is the brain screaming for help.

And here is what we don't admit: childbirth is trauma, even when it goes well. Your body tears, your hormones drop by over 90% in 48 hours, you bleed for weeks, you don't sleep for months, and everyone comes to see the baby, not you. They ask, "How is the baby?" Nobody asks, "How are YOU, really?"

If you are not surrounded by support, that loneliness can swallow you whole.

My Uncle Did What Many Men Refuse To Do: He Stayed

Thank God my aunt's husband was a medical doctor. He understood. But you don't need to be a doctor to understand.

He wore her shoes when it was hurting her most.

That is the sentence that should be printed on every antenatal card. He bathed that baby from 3 months to 8 months. He didn't shame her. He didn't call his mother to report that his wife is lazy. He didn't beat her into bonding. He covered her.

That is what partnership looks like. Not just money for hospital bills and baby clothes. But showing up in the mess. Taking night shifts. Saying, "You rest, I've got her." Protecting his wife from family members who would judge her.

If you must give birth as a woman, do it with a lovely partner. And if you are not privileged to have one — and many women are not — get yourself help. That help can be your mother, your sister, a paid nanny, a neighbour, your church women's group. Do not try to be a superwoman alone. Superwoman is exhausted and dying in silence.

And to the partners reading this: her inability to bond is not a rejection of you. It is a sign that she needs you more, not less.

What We Must Do Differently As A Community

1. Stop the shaming in church and family. When a mother says she is tired, sad, or not feeling love for her baby, don't tell her to pray harder. Pray with her, AND take her to the hospital. Both can exist together.

2. Watch for the signs. If a new mother is withdrawing, not eating, not sleeping even when baby sleeps, crying uncontrollably, saying she is a failure, unable to care for the baby, or having scary thoughts about harming the baby or herself — that is not normal "baby blues." That needs urgent medical care.

3. Take the baby AND the mother. In that church incident, they did the right thing — they took the child from her to keep the baby safe, AND they took her for medical care. Too often we only rescue the baby and punish the mother. Both need rescue.

4. Talk about it before birth. During antenatal classes, we teach how to push. We should also teach about postpartum mental health. Let women know it is common, treatable, and not their fault.

Today, my aunt and her daughter are twinning. That should give every struggling mother hope. With time, support, and care, bonding can come back. Love can return. That mother who felt nothing can become the mother who can't be separated from her child.

She was never a bad mother. She was a mother who was unwell and needed help.

Childbirth is no joke. Motherhood is no joke. If you are going through this, please speak up. If you know someone going through this, please step in — not with judgment, but with help.

You are not a wicked woman. You are a woman who carried life and needs to be carried too.

A/N: If you've experienced Postpartum depression before or know someone who has comment your story below!