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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Elizabeth Sankey

‘I was in a horror film, unsafe. And the person I was in danger from was me’: the truth about severe postpartum anxiety

Portrait of Elizabeth Sankey and her son
Elizabeth Sankey with her son: ‘It was he who saved my life, giving me a reason to keep going.’ Photograph: Lydia Goldblatt/The Guardian

“If you tried to leave now, we would section you.” It was my second day in the mother and baby unit, a psychiatric ward that treats women with perinatal mental health issues, while helping them care for their babies. I was sitting on the edge of my single bed, with its squeaky vinyl cover, my son asleep next to me in a cot that was impossibly huge for a four-week-old baby. I bit my lip and tried to stop my leg twitching up and down.

“You’d section me?”

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