Freida Pinto Opens Up About Her Experience With Postpartum Depression

Last year, while pregnant with her first child, actor, producer, and postpartum care brand Anya’s chief impact officer Freida Pinto spoke to Vogue about changing the harmful narrative that women need to “bounce back” from pregnancy. “I’m 13 months postpartum—there is no bouncing back because you’re changed forever,” says Pinto, speaking over the phone from Austin, Texas, where she describes the air is a bit cleaner and the days a bit slower than her family’s alternate hub in Los Angeles. It’s a welcome change of pace. 

Now, with firsthand experience of the highs and lows of motherhood, Pinto wants to share her perspective on the uncontrollable, unforeseeable moments of being a new parent and battling postpartum depression. “I think it’s almost easier to talk about the physical level,” she says, noting that she’s finding her core and back strength again while dealing with abdominal wall separation. “But on a mental level and an emotional level, you can’t necessarily always explain anxiety and expression in words like ‘I feel pain in my knee, or in my lower back,’ so it starts making that illness invisible, and because it’s invisible, it starts getting ignored.” 

She points out that the United States often ignores the need to care for new mothers with a support system. It’s a far cry from the postnatal care centers in China, generous parental leave in Sweden, pelvic floor-therapy coverage in Belgium and France, and paid childcare for a child’s first year in Japan. Nevertheless, it’s something that Pinto prepared for with her own family by creating a “postpartum sanctuary” and leaning into her culture of Ayurveda with the help of her mom, who traveled from India when her son was born. For the first 40 days after giving birth, they nourished Pinto’s body with nutrition, postnatal supplements, and plenty of rest. “I thought that was going to make me immune to any of the mental illnesses that come in the postpartum period, mainly feeling very low, anxious, and depressed,” she says. Then, suddenly, four months in, she started experiencing anxiety and depression. “In some people’s minds, including some doctors, the postpartum period ends at six weeks or three months,” she says. “That is completely false. Postpartum is forever.” 

She likens the emotions that began enveloping her to a black hole. “I stayed kind of hidden for quite some time; I wouldn’t even let myself go out and get fresh air because that’s how horrible I felt,” says Pinto. She hadn’t yet considered it postnatal depression since she’d been taking such good care of herself. “I had not given my body and mind enough credit for the hormone surges and the new changes and the pressures of going back to work and the anxiety that came with it—I really struggled with focus and concentration and lack of sleep.” Coupled with constant advice from outside voices and endless books on motherhood, “I fell into the trap of listening to everybody and everything and found myself losing my instinct,” says Pinto. “When it started getting really bad, I actively started seeking help,” she says of returning to therapy. “Because I am someone who is predisposed to anxiety and I’ve been in therapy for anxiety before, it was a sign that I was going through it again.” 

Now, she’s working with Sollis Health as part of their Warriors campaign partnering with Martha Stewart and Martha Hunt, among others sharing their own stories, designed to shed light on invisible illnesses and provide a new level of care. For an annual membership fee, and with flagships in New York and Beverly Hills, the company offers unlimited medical consultations, unlimited blood work and testing, and telehealth. “At Sollis, a doctor is available 24/7, and by design will take the time to listen, explain tests, walk you through all the options for treatment, and never rush you out the door—which is something we hear again and again,” says Sabine Heller, CCO and the third generation of women in her family fighting for the medically underserved. “My grandmother, who was a doctor and Member of Parliament in India, laid the foundation for a polio-free India,” says Heller. When Heller’s mother was diagnosed with Polio in 1954, her grandmother “refused to accept what the medical community told her at the time—that nothing could be done—and started beating down doors until she found the best medical care available.” Today, Heller’s work with Sollis Health aims to remove the shame, stigma, and silence around chronic and invisible health conditions. 

Pinto hopes their partnership will ultimately elevate the level, breadth, and accessibility of available care for new mothers on every front. “Not everyone knows that talk therapy actually exists for postpartum mothers,” she says. “This is where Sollis can come into the picture and really help out.” She touts their services for testing postpartum thyroid levels and understanding hormone balances, and providing trusted resources (“not Dr. Google at 2 a.m.”) that alleviate—rather than activate—anxiety. “It’s not like you’re calling them up and the doctor on the other side is diagnosing you with something,” she says of the telemedical team. “They’re just asking you the right questions, putting your mind at ease, [and] referring you to someone else if they feel it’s important at that point—that kind of guidance is like a bond. Someone is actually listening to me, not dumbing down my feelings and experience right now.” 

Today, Pinto can appreciate her ability to empathize with other mothers after this year of enlightenment. “It’s about sharing,” she says. “If I can share a part of the resources, if I can share the extra that I have in the form of time, platform, money, and knowledge, I think that would be the legacy I would like to leave, and for that, I need to be doing it with companies like Sollis,” she says of the importance of seeking verified medical sources. “I’m grateful that I could figure out a way of taking care of myself, but now I’ll be more attentive for the rest of my life. Like I said, postpartum is not a short period—it could happen again.”