Princess Diana Revealed Postpartum Depression 'Hit Hard' After William's Birth: 'I Was Troubled'
Princess Diana revealed that the media pressure surrounding her pregnancy with Prince William was “unbearable,” but things didn’t get easier once the baby arrived.
The royal spoke to Andrew Morton for his 1992 book Diana: Her True Story, where she shared the struggles she experienced as she navigated life with a newborn heir.
“Came home and then postnatal depression hit me hard and it wasn’t so much the baby that had produced it, it was the baby that triggered off all else that was going on in my mind,” she shared. “Boy, I was troubled.”
Diana said that she would worry about her husband, Prince Charles: “If he didn’t come when he said he was coming home I thought something dreadful had happened to him. Tears, panic, all the rest of it. He didn’t see the panic because I would sit there quietly.”
It didn’t help that she felt shunned by the royal family at Prince William‘s christening.
“Endless pictures of the Queen, Queen Mother, Charles and William,” Diana said. “I was excluded totally that day. I felt desperate, because I had literally just given birth – William was only 6 weeks old. And it was all decided around me. Hence the ghastly pictures.”
She added, “Everything was out of control, everything. I wasn’t very well and I just blubbed my eyes out. William started crying too. Well, he just sensed that I wasn’t exactly hunky-dory.”
In Diana: Her True Story, the royal revealed that she felt such enormous pressure from the media surrounding the birth of her first child that she was induced – but they had to pick a day that didn’t interfere with Prince Charles‘ polo schedule.
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“When we had William, we had to find a date in the diary that suited Charles and his polo,” she said. “William had to be induced because I couldn’t handle the press pressure any longer, it was becoming unbearable. It was as if everyone was monitoring every day for me.”
Princess Diana added, “Anyway, the boy arrived, great excitement. Thrilled, everyone absolutely high as a kite – we had found a date where Charles could get off his polo pony for me to give birth. That was very nice, felt grateful about that!”
