Like Laure Manaudou, many French women have a bad time postpartum

“Thanks to the filters for removing dark circles, the remains of tears, fatigue… Postpartum for a third party is even more difficult. Don’t think it’s easier for others”. In an Instagram story published on Saturday March 20, Olympic swimming champion Laure Manaudou confided for the first time on the birth of her third child and on her difficult postpartum.

15% of women affected by postpartum depression

Like Laure Manaudou, many women (80%) are prone to baby blues after the birth of their child, even if it is not the first. For 10 to 15% of French women, this difficult period can go as far as the installation of postpartum depression, which must then be treated with health professionals.

“All that is dark, we can not talk about it”

Without care, postpartum depression can last up to three years. But despite the importance of the phenomenon, the baby blues or postpartum depression are still largely taboo, as explained by Illana Weizman, doctoral student in sociology and author of the book This is our postpartum: defeating myths and taboos to emancipate oneself (Marabout editions). “When you become a mother, there is this omnipresent idea that the only emotion you can feel is happiness. Anything dark, you can’t talk about it”, analyzes the young mother, at the initiative on Twitter of the now famous hashtag #balancetonpostpartum.

She adds : “It is not an individual problem, on the contrary, the problem is collective and due to a system that abandons us during this period. When we have integrated this, then we can get out of the guilt and manage to talk about it. In the long run, there needs to be a system change, an end to the patriarchal model of motherhood.”